Date night

We ordered a drink and sat down to wait.

Two pairs of friends sit across from each other at a picnic table in the brewery courtyard. The swells of warm summer-ebbing air and the sounds of weekend dad bands competing for attention surround them.

You can picture it, can’t you?

By the looks of it, they could fit a stereotype. Middle-aged, middle-class, soon-to-be empty-nesters who could sleep in on a Sunday morning if they wanted to, were it not for age-related insomnia.

They are smiling and laughing, enjoying each other’s company.

We might assume they are long-time friends with kids who don’t have babysitters or curfews anymore. Their hobbies are watching sports and listening to podcasts. They hate weeding but worry the neighbors are judging the angle of the lines they mow onto their lawns. In other words: Boring. Like us.

I will as I start a game of bad-lip-reading. I make up all the other details with which I will create their story out of thin air. 

A child lugging a well-loved toy clatters past. The women turn their heads grinning with nostalgia. Their kids were once that young. Their faces light up, perhaps to hide any judgment that might have grown on them with age.

Just as we do.

Outwardly, we have much in common: They share a common location and appear to be about the same age. They talk small at first. They remark on the weather or the ease at which they were able to find suitable parking space.

Inwardly, I wonder what sets us apart.  

Surely not how hard it seems to make new friends or how seldom we try.

Over drinks and appetizers, we make this social meeting feel something akin to a job interview.

The stakes, though not as high, provoke enough anxiety to make us stumble over our words or worry about whether the amount we are sharing will sink any fledgling friendships.

We measure how good we are at small talk in the hopes we don’t come up short or cast our lines too far. We plan our discourse to unfold in ascending order.

“Can you believe this weather we’re having? “What’s your favorite childhood memory? Afterlife? Or no afterlife?”

How honest is too honest? We need to know if we want to be invited back. But we also want to make connections that matter. 

When is the right time to talk about our “procedures?” Certainly not on the first outing.

The goal right now is to ease into one topic and pivot to another, and another without members of the other party looking to settle up with the bartender. But the hope is to one day host a Friendsgiving where we can rest assured that no one will be merely tolerated. 

The thing that friends get to select but families have to stomach. 

Once our friends arrive and we ease into conversation, I lose track of our anonymous date-night neighbors. But as I look around, I feel joy at all the possibilities.