On the Not-Date Date

Millennials are screwed.
Those of us born after 1982 have no idea what it means to interact with people romantically.
It's half the fault of texting, the rise of the "booty call," and the general departure from the chivalrous into the hook-up culture.
The middle ground we often stand in can be a beautiful thing. You get to try on pseudo-relationships before you leap into them, but a lot of chaos ensues in the meantime.

I don't want to sit here and say it's representative of my generation, because I've dated plenty of people (still am dating) who were born before 1982 and share the same, seemingly Milleninial semi-chivalrous-yet-hesitant-predilections. On the flip side, I've also dated plenty of people born after 1982 who are adorable, charming, and date-driven. Not every date leads to a relationship. Some lead to beautiful friendships. Others lead to crazy passionate affairs. Some just stop. Some just limp along. Some lead to the best stories ever.

Ready for this?
I've experienced a lot of that ensuing chaos, but nothing on par with this:

My dear friend E lives with three wonderful randoms she met on Craigslist. They have a giant, gorgeous house. They threw a Halloween party last weekend. At said Halloween party, I was introduced to this kid. We'll call him K.

Reader's Digest version: I meet boy at party. I kiss boy. We exchange numbers. We get dinner. He offers to pick me up and then pays for dinner. We have drinks. I try to give him a goodnight kiss and it's soooo (yeah, that) awkward.
[there are more gory details including the owner of the bar buying us shots and telling us we looked like we were going to get married, but I'll leave that for another day]

I hear today that he told his friend that it took him awhile to realize he was on a date.
What?!
I mean, that definitely explains all the weirdness.
I spent about an hour burning with shame, humiliation, and the prospect of semi-rejection before I snapped out of it. I'm not putting this one back on me. Seriously? You make out with me and then expect me to think we're having a business-y dinner meeting?

I start polling people I know:

I call Katie to ask her advice. "If it looks like a date and smells like a date..." she says.

I ask J. "It's like if you came over and I had Barry White on and was wearing a sexy bathrobe and there were rose petals all over the floor, but I just wanted to play video games."

E tells me to stop being such an idiot.

I was just watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother about Ted going on a date with Stella, only to realize that all of her friends are there, too. He whispers to one of them that he's embarrassed because he thought it was a date and she whispers it to everyone else. Then they whisper the collective response back at him. Everyone laughs at him.

This is my life. I am Ted Mosby, architect, and apparently, recent master of the non-date.


I'm semi-related news:

I guess it's somehow fitting that I'm wearing this shirt today:

The sexual life of adult women is a “dark continent” for psychology.

SIGMUND FREUD, The Question of Lay Analysis

On Women and Work

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/

Such a long read, but so worth it (I think - I'm halfway through page 3).
I'm swamped with proposals right now, so I don't have time to really get to it. I'll pick it apart later.

Enjoy your afternoon!

On the first snow

I've felt that feeling of glorious beginning only a few times in my life, but I can still remember the first moment for all of them.
It's never a complete memory, just a glimpse, a snapshot.
You will never feel the way you do in that moment ever again. There will be highs, lows, the muddling about in between, but there is never anything so pure as the singular realization of possibility.

Today, I was too busy to write about how I feel about fall. About the way the light looks different now than it did a month ago, how the sun shines on crisp leaves. I wanted to show you the leaves blowing across the road, skipping along and settling. I wanted you to feel what I felt. Color set against the gray light. Beauty in the beginning of the end. (The beginning of anything is always the beginning of the end.)

It is one of those glimpses, a moment slipping away before the barren winter arrives.

Tonight is that feeling. Tonight is full of possibilities. Tonight, you don't see it coming; you can't; you're too excited. It'll stay like that forever.

The first snow is the best snow. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it and covers you before you have a chance to take it in. You sit by the window. You stare. You watch the flakes fall. You could watch for hours, you're enamored. You want it to last forever - your childhood is calling. You see snowball fights and snow forts, your yellow kitchen table and mugs of hot chocolate.

You forget the frostbitten toes and pink cheeks. You forget the feeling of wet wool socks. Now, all you can see is the glittering, the snow falling through the eyes of the street lights. You forget that you've forgotten to pull you windshield wipers away from your car; that your winter jacket hasn't been to the cleaners; that you're going to be late for work.

The snow will turn black, eventually. It will melt away until the misshapen clumps become eyesores. You'll ache for fresh flowers. You'll hate how empty the trees are. Autumn fades before you know it, giving way to the endless winter. Just as you think you're about to go mad with want of life, spring arrives to save you.

You feel the rush all over again. Love is the first day you run barefoot outside, only to realize the ground is still frozen underneath the spreading warmth.

Potential.

Either that, or six more weeks of winter.

On Tim Tebow (ugh)

I'm not the biggest Tim Tebow fan, that's no big secret. But this blog is all about him: 

Article number one is from the Huffington Post and article number two is from Grantland. Enjoy!

Tim Tebow, Denver Broncos Quarterback And Focus On The Family Spokesperson, Kisses Demaryius Thomas

First Posted: 10/24/11 12:44 PM ET Updated: 10/25/11 11:54 AM ET

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Although Tim Tebow filmed a Superbowl commercialin 2010 for the anti-gay, anti-abortion organizationFocus On The Family (FOTF), he seems to have no problem sharing a male-on-male lip-lock in front of thousands (millions?) of onlookers.

On Sunday, the Denver Broncos quarterback kissed Demaryius Thomas after Thomas caught a touchdown pass. The Broncos went on to beat the Dolphins 18-15.

Towleroad noted that this wasn't the first time Tebow, who has been referred to as the "Bieber of Football,"shared a same-sex kiss on the field: Tebow waspecked by University of Florida teammate Tony Joiner a few years ago.

Tebow's feelings about homosexuality and gay marriage remain unclear. This summer, when asked about gay marriage by The Washington Post, his publicist jumped in and rejected the question. But, considering his ties to FOTF, he's probably not about to announce he's coming out of the closet (or would support those who have) -- but who knows?

Still, if an NFL quarterback and card-carrying member of FOTF wants to go around very publicly kissing other men on the mouth, we're OK with that.

[I don't think that even counts as a kiss. I'm pretty sure I've accidentally brushed lips against a few people in my life without meaning to. It was basically a millisecond of brush - as though they were both going in for the same side of the hug. There's no reason it should be news.]

Debunking the Tim Tebow Myth

If you think the Broncos' new starting quarterback has finally earned the right to be treated like NFL royalty, you probably don't want to read this breakdown

By Bill BarnwellPOSTED OCTOBER 24, 2011

Robert Mayer/US Presswire

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"Congrats to @TimTebow for that comeback win today. Impressive! He's just a winner."
— @KingJames, who knows about guys who just win when he sees them.

Far be it from us to ruin an admittedly great story, but let's be real about the Tim Tebow plaudits being thrown around after the Broncos' 18-15 comeback over the Dolphins on Sunday. Tebow certainly deserves some of the credit, but not the massive outpouring of praise that is being thrown his way.

The Win Probability chart at advancednflstats.com for this game tells the true story of what happened. When Tebow took over on his own 20-yard line down 15 points with 5:23 left, both Broncos and Dolphins fans were leaving the stadium in Miami, and they weren't wrong to do so. The Broncos' chances of winning were estimated to be around 1 percent. Tebow proceeded to lead his most impressive drive of the day, going 80 yards in eight plays, throwing a five-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas.

For all that work, the Broncos' chances of winning had improved all the way to … 2 percent. Teams with an eight-point lead that are about to receive the kickoff simply don't lose very frequently; it takes an expected onside kick to pick it up, and teams recover expected onside kicks only about 20 percent of the time. When the Broncos were able to recover the kick, their win expectancy improved to 12 percent; the onside kick was six times more valuable than Tebow's drive. If that figure seems low, consider that the Broncos still needed to drive 50 yards, score, pick up a two-point conversion, and then win in overtime. They had momentum in their favor, but so have plenty of other teams in this scenario who haven't been able to pick up the W.

Tebow then proceeded to take advantage of a short field. Starting on his own 44-yard line, Tebow drove the team 56 yards in 10 plays, highlighted by a gorgeous 28-yard throw to (and equally impressive catch from) Daniel Fells. After that, Denver converted the two-pointer on a Tebow run¹ and the Broncos' win expectancy was pushed all the way up to 46 percent. They'd made an incredible comeback, but they were still underdogs heading into overtime.

After they won the overtime coin toss and traded possessions with the Broncos, the Dolphins remained favorites. When Daniel Thomas converted a second-and-2 to give the Dolphins a new set of downs on their own 43-yard line, the Dolphins only needed to travel about 25 more yards to pick up a game-winning field goal. They win an estimated 67 percent of the time in that situation.

That, of course, led to the final dramatic swing. Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams sacked Matt Moore on the ensuing play, producing a single-play swing that was bigger than any of Tebow's drives. The Broncos went from a win expectancy of 33 percent to 78 percent by recovering the fumble, and while they proceeded to gain only two yards on the subsequent drive, they converted another short field into points to win the game.

On Sunday, Tim Tebow was given a total of 15 possessions. Four of them started with 56 yards or less to go for an offensive touchdown. Not coincidentally, of the four, three were his final three drives, and he produced a total of 11 points on those drives. His other 11 drives all started deep in his own territory, with six of them beginning on the 20-yard line and only one beyond the 25 (a drive that started on the Miami 41 that resulted in a missed field goal). Ten of those drives resulted in eight punts, a missed field goal, and a fumble. They gained, on average, less than 12 yards.

This isn't a one-week trend, either. When he came in against the Chargers last Sunday, Tebow started with three consecutive drives inside his own 31-yard line. The Broncos punted on all three drives. On the ensuing two possessions, though, Tebow started from his own 49-yard line and the San Diego 41-yard line. With the short fields, he proceeded to score two touchdowns. It can't be much simpler.

A lot of what we're crediting to Tim Tebow is actually the impact of things that are totally out of his control, a combination of field position, defensive turnovers, and a miracle on special teams. He deserves some of the plaudits that have come his way over the past two Sundays. Just not all of them.