Couples Dating

Being single can be tough. As far as dating goes, it gets pretty tiresome going through date after date realizing each suitor is more nutzo than the last and struggling to maintain confidence in society in general. Despite this, eventually 95% of people do end up getting married. And then it's over, right? You've found your match, now you can just sit back and enjoy the ride. But it's only just begun.

It turns out that dating life while you are single is just the warm up for the much more excruciating "couples dating" that you must endure after you've found your perfect match. Once you're in a committed relationship, and after the weird phase of only wanting to talk to your oh-so-fascinating spouse fades, it's time to court other friends. And most likely many of these friends come with their own spouse/partner as tagalongs. I've been married for 5 years now and Spike and I still talk about some of our more comical "dates" like the close-talkers, the halitosis cases, the P.D.A. offenders and the couples who use us for free marriage therapy sessions.

The chances of 4 people all playing nice and not getting bugged about some random fault of the four is highly unlikely. So unlikely that Spike and I do happy little jigs when we find a "match" every once in a blue moon. There are all the complications of single life dating, multiplied by four. The wife thinks we're crude, the husband finds me obnoxious, Spike thinks she talks too loud or I can't stand the sound of the his laugh. Add in all the other logistical factors of getting four people together at one time and it's a miracle that we ever have anything to do on weekends.

My neighbors (a match!) and I were talking about this phenomena last night and all agreed that there is a definite "honeymoon phase." Everyone gets together for that first dinner and is positively delightful and charming in every way. Cute stories about "how-we-met" and career goals are swapped. The evening ends and the couples return to their homes to discuss possible future "dates" and coo over the fascinating tidbits picked up about each other. A few dates later you find yourself listening to a repeat story that you didn't find that funny the first time, and can't quite bring yourself to laugh at the second time. After a month, one of the other spouses decides you giggle too much and plays the sick card on the night when the four of you were supposed to meet for a movie. The husband can't very well come without her, and so the whole relationship is vetoed by one misfit.

And yet we must date. When we first moved to Los Angeles two years ago we couples dated hardcore for 6 months or so and made a lot of really good friends. Unfortunately, most of our friends have moved from California in search of cheaper housing. Facing our diminished friend pool we find ourselves forced back into the dating game. So Spike got a nice new haircut, I scrubbed my teeth nice and white, and off we go to woo new couples and convince them that we are hip and a friendship with us is a sound investment in the future. If we are unsuccessful, we'll be left with nothing but each other and the TiVo. Let the games begin!