A first date is not just a tryout between the parties concerned. In the literally tightknit world of small New York bars, the first rendezvous often becomes an audition in front of total strangers not invested in the outcome. You know, your neighbors at that cute little oblong candlelit table, whose knees inadvertently rub up against your own as you struggle to figure out whom you’re with—the girl across from you, the girl next to you, or the guy who’s spitting in your hefeweizen. Every word can become scrutinized—wittingly, willingly, or not—and should be weighed with precision. Your date might suck. You might have lost interest five minutes into it—or five seconds—but now you’re alienating a totally different segment of the population. Watch what you say. Words that fall harmlessly down on your companion can seem totally hilarious to a perfect stranger enjoying the social writhing in clownish awkwardness and first-date faux pas. For hypothetical example, “Your online profile has a 12.0 Flesch-Kincaid rating.” That kind of thing.
On the bright side, if you’re not having an amazing time, you can take solace in the fact that your neighbors aren’t either:
“What’s up with all the silence?”
“How can these two stand each other?”
My jokes are vastly superior to his. You want to think all these, especially that last one.
Of course, what you definitely don’t want, is to be attracted to the girl you’re not with—the one sitting right next to you with her girlfriend, trading much wittier jokes and stroking her hair seductively. The one who accidentally overhears your life dreams and interjects, excusing herself, because she just wanted to say how right you are and she’d never met anyone who felt the same way she does.
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