“She’s a tremendous kisser,” I thought. I was too busy to actually give her the verbal confirmation as we were making out in her vehicle. The fingertips of her left hand caressed the skin behind my right ear before slowly tracing my cheek. My right hand swept across her stomach and rested on her left hip after squeezing it. She nibbled on my bottom lip and licked the top one. Before we sat inside her car we strolled together aimlessly. Telling jokes about stories from our lives. Exchanging perspectives on movies, sports, television shows, food, pets, politics, etc. It was a date. Our first. She eventually became my girlfriend for nine months. It started on…
…an ice cream date.
Of the many ills of modern dating - and it’s clear that list is expansive and constantly growing - a topic for endless debate and judgment is how to spend a first date.
How much time and money should be spent on a job interview where you have to be able to see a future with a stranger, be attracted enough to want to be naked without removing your garments after the first hug, and return home before your parents call the news and you end up as the central story of another true crime podcast? Did that sum it up?
Let’s remove the missing-person-report cloud away from this. I apologize for the imagery.
Ice cream dates are perfect first dates.
You don’t agree?
If so, the only way to explain your position is to admit in front of everyone here that you don’t like joy. You are the killer of fun. Come clean about violently abducting Santa Claus, holding the Tooth Fairy for ransom, shearing one of Cupid’s wings, and poisoning puppies after stealing peanut butter cups from a stupendous kindergarten Halloween party.
To buttress my case Your Honor, I will prove that a date over a frozen - dairy - dessert is undefeated. Yes, I will allow non-dairy entities to be allowed into this conversation so as not to be deemed discriminatory.
Ice cream is happy food.
Try eating your favorite flavors atop a cone, inside a bowl with your favorite toppings, in a pre-made ice cream sandwich, or have two large cookies pressed on each side of a pillow of frozen treasure…without boundless childlike wonder - and a smile to illuminate the purple night. It’s impossible to eat ice cream without beaming and feeling immediately better while enjoying it.
Think about a bad day where you stopped for a quiet chunk of time and consumed ice cream. Can you admit…in front of a court of your peers that your mood didn’t receive a boost? Even if said emotional jolt was temporary? Of course you can’t. Your Honor, I rest…
I’ve been watching an abundance of court-based dramas lately. Sorry.
Picking up ice cream for a first date starts you both in an easily comfortable space. Dates test anxiety and work your nerves like LA traffic. You want a first date to be overwhelmingly simple above all else.
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