The definition of a date

So a friend of a friend writes this blog "50dates50countries" where she is chronicling her ambition of going on 50 dates total with men from 50 different countries. She plays a little fast and loose with her definition of a date - after all one of her posts was about meeting a guy randomly at a bookstore and having coffee after and then getting stuck with the bill. I would never have classified the perchance meeting with someone I wasn't really interested in as a date, but she did. Reading her blog, which is updated sporadically, has made me rethink some of my past encounters and whether or not they might have been dates.

Like the time a guy from work invited me to dinner and a concert for some band I'd never heard of before. I can't remember exactly why I agreed to go because I didn't really like him, but I just assumed it wasn't a date because I wasn't really interested in it being a date.

And there was the time when I guy I knew casually from the gym invited me to see a movie after work one day and when I declined because I had to catch the train home, he offered to drive me home if I would go to the movie. It was an hour drive round trip. It was some depressing Scottish film, certainly not a good date movie. But after the movie, he asked if I wanted to grab something to eat and then proceeded to walk to my favorite restaurant in downtown San Jose, which I had casually mentioned a few weeks before. I'm pretty sure it was a date, even though a few years later he denied it.

Or there was the time in grad school when I invited the guy I liked to a movie screening with me and we made reservations at my favorite Italian restaurant beforehand. The fact that he showed up in a coffee-stained shirt and paid just for his share of the meal made me certain it was not a date.

I don't really know what my definition of a date is, but I guess if no one in the equation utters the word I assume it's not a date. A friend insists it's a date if the guy pays. A coworker said if afterwards you are still not sure if it was a date, it was probably a date, though I am not quite sure on the reasoning of that.

I hung out with someone I like in a date-like situation recently, but the jury is still out on whether it was actually a date. Good conversation, check. Plenty of eye contact and laughing, check. Him picking up the tab even though I offered to split it, check. But I don't really know what he thought of the whole thing so I am going to hold off on saying I've completed New Year's Resolution No. 9 to go on one date this year. I am hoping that instead I will be able to report that I've been on two or more dates with the same person.

And if it turns out not to have been a date, I've got someone who asked if he could set me up a blind date. At least then I will know for sure it is a date.