A few months ago I was flipping out to one of my guy friends about my love life, as I often do. (Sorry, guys.) I had gone on a second date to eat a home-cooked meal at a gentleman’s apartment and ended up spending the night. We didn’t have sex, but we did in lots of other activities that aren’t your typical second date material. Of course, come Monday morning, I started freaking out that this gentleman caller would lose interest in me because we’d done too much too soon. So I instant messaged my friend D., who is also single, and asked what he thought.
“What time did all this happen?” He IMed back.
“I don’t know,” I wrote. “I came over for dinner at eight, we ate dinner and dessert, then we talked on the couch for a long time and he gave me a footrub. After midnight?”
“Oh, that’s fine, then,” D. wrote back. “When a date goes into the wee hours of the morning, it really becomes another date. And hooking up on a third date is pretty standard.”
Oooooh, I thought to myself. That makes sense! Let’s call this “the principle of elongated dating.” Keep reading »
