It was a double date and we were gonna go on it together. With our husbands.

And we decided to not call it a double date and then all I could do was think of it as a double date. Another friend asked me the night before, What are you doing tomorrow and I said, “I’m going on a double date!”

So, a double date’s a double date. You can’t un-name it and have it not be a total of four of you sitting at one table together. Staring at each other. Thinking of interesting things to talk about and say. It’s a fallacy to think there is nothing double or date about it. It’s also a fallacy to say you only talk about interesting things. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t.

And so then I was getting ready for the date and I started to think of it as a first date. A first double date. Double whammy, no? And I thought a little too hard about what to wear and about how much make-up to put on. Truth be told, that is a phase I am in currently but because it was a first double date it seemed even more fraught. And then I started to feel self-conscious about the whole thing and about 20 minutes before the date, MY date (my husband) walked into our room and I yammered, “Should I just cancel this thing?” as one does 20 minutes before a first date (double or otherwise).

We didn’t cancel and we had a fun night. Mostly because it wasn’t a real date. We knew each other. All four of us have spent time together at parties, on pub crawls, in local backyards. We had things to talk about with no awkward pauses, except for the natural awkward pauses that occur when you are with friends sitting at a restaurant awkwardly pausing.  Different from awkward pauses when you are sitting with strangers or people you have truly never socialized with before. It is different. For real.

If you don’t believe me then just ask me if we are going on another date with this couple.

Well, I don’t know the answer yet. She hasn’t texted me back.