I was in my first year of college, and atypically for the college experience, I was in an even smaller town than the already small town where I had spent my high school years. The theater in the town would only show one movie and seat at best 100 people. There were three of us that night.
It was a first date and it was not going well at all. We were watching “Gangs of New York” and it was a dreadful two and a half hours long. I don’t even remember the plot because I had to keep shifting away from my date who had a choice move of sticking his tongue in my ear.
To this day, I have no idea why that was the move he thought would be appropriate. Maybe it was his youth, leaving him confused as well to what he should be doing.
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At one point, I got up and paced the small lobby. It was a town of barely 9,000 people. It was small enough where I could see the few cars driving on the main street decide to only pause, rather than stop, at the red light at the intersection.
I debated calling my roommate. But it was late, and how would I explain my leaving when I’d invariably see him back on campus? Ghosting wasn’t quite a thing then. I also debated coming back in and having “forgot” where we sat, but that’s when I realized peeking back in that I was the missing third person in the the theater. I braced myself and I went back in.
The night ended with us chatting in his bedroom and suddenly knowing in my gut that it had gone from bad date to potentially a bad situation. I jumped up to make small talk with his similarly awkward roommate who had a framed picture of his Labrador in the living room. “I have labs! Tell me about your dog,” I yelped in order to get him to come over and give me an out.
I didn’t have a #MeToo moment that night. I had a bad date and I wasn’t savvy enough to get out of it. However, it could have led to a #MeToo. I watched the public incineration of a date gone wrong of Aziz Ansari with interest, in particular those expressing a point of view — some young and angry, some older and confused, and a mix of both. I floated toward the older and confused side.
In The Atlantic, Caitlin Flanagan came at it with privilege, saying you should have money to call a cab if a man got “fresh”, but then put up a speculation that struck me, “In so many ways, compared with today’s young women, we were weak; we were being prepared for being wives and mothers, not occupants of the C-Suite. But as far as getting away from a man who was trying to pressure us into sex we didn’t want, we were strong.”
But the younger generation is strong; we listen to our guts. And, we are in the midst of a new revolution that hopefully sustains more conversation about what constitutes harassment and what constitutes a bad date. It requires a longer series of conversations about how there might be an undercurrent in dating that has been influenced by a distant and casual sentiment toward actions which might not be all that casual and might end up in very, very close calls for both women and men.
Cassie McClure is a writer, wife/Mama/daughter, fan of the Oxford comma, and drinker of tequila. Some of those things relate. She can be contacted at cassiemcclure@gmail.com.