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n the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to - a singles bar?
Dating has changed. Even the way singles meet singles has changed. Men and women did not go to bars in order to find someone to fill your place or mine. Men hung out in barrooms and talked to each other about their successes or failures in dating, and baseball was an equal-opportunity conversation.
A boy asked a girl to go to the movies with him. That meant paying for the movie plus, depending on the age, a trip to the drug store for an ice cream sundae. Then you walked her home.
That's right. The guy walked the girl home. During World War II, there were songs such as "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" and "I'll Walk Alone."
Actually, Walking My Baby Back Home was neat. (Neat was the "cool" of our day). You could walk with your arm around your date and not have a care about traffic or for paying attention to the road. Anyway, the girl's father felt more secure if the boy didn't have a car. I remember that just before I left for the Navy, a girl and I went to see a movie and then walked to a favorite ice cream shop and then about a mile or so to her house. We did that in the rain. We put nickels into the jukebox, and one of the songs we played was "Blue Rain." The blue rain was a symbol for the dark days of the war, but that love song stayed with me all the while I was in service. I forgot the girl but not the song.
I was stationed at St. Alban's and close to New York City. My friend and I arranged a foursome. We went to see a movie on Broadway that featured a live performance by a comedian who peppered his routine with off-color stories.
When my date laughed, I figured I had it made. She would not have laughed if she hadn't "been around." It turned out that I was someone she didn't want to be around with. But that was one of the tests. If the girl passed, the guy would wind up walking into a drug store backward.
One of the truly great events of those early dating years was buying a couple of tickets to a dance. It seemed that every month some organization would sponsor a dance. It was not necessary to be an expert dancer, and there is no better date than to hold a girl in your arms throughout the evening.
I learned to do the steps of whatever dance music was being played, but I seldom got the rhythm right. Moreover, I still wasn't meeting the right girl. Well, I'd met her, I just didn't know it.
And that wound up to be the strangest date of all. A fellow worker gave me tickets to a lecture on psychology that was being offered at the Jewish Center. I knew who would be interested, and I grabbed those tickets and called that girl.
So what was really my first great date had me listening to a lecture with my future wife sitting beside me. I don't remember anything important being said.
So now, they have their first meeting at a singles bar, and too often, the future is simply whatever the night will bring.
I can't speak to that scene because I am not in it, but I still recommend a walking date.
Keep in touch.
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