Maybe Marti Knows?? — Week 2: Ambushed at Applebee’s
Hello Marti,
I live in a small town. And I love it. It’s an entirely different world than my old life in Seattle. The situation I am about to describe though, has to do with #smalltownproblems that seem to come up every goddamn day.
The scene:
Applebee’s. I do not like Applebee’s. But did you know they have $1 margaritas aka dollaritas ALL OF OCTOBER. So yes, I was at Applebee’s.
Walk into the restaurant, immediately make eye contact with the guy I am seeing with what appears to be HIS ENTIRE FAMILY INCLUDING GRANDMA. Now granted we have been dating since May, but fairly casually. I know his family knows about me, but I have never met them. He waves at me sheepishly, and I am literally so flustered I ran into the bar, pretending to look for someone, but there are no seats so I have to skulk back to the hostess. The waitress takes my friend and I to a booth, AND SITS US RIGHT NEXT TO HIM. No no bueno. Luckily the waitress was really in tune with what was up and immediately moved us to another table. What ensued was a dinner full of awkward waves, what should I dos? and strategically walking by his table acting all coy and cute.
After the dinner:
Text conversation with the man. I was like sorry I was so awk. He was like, I didn’t think it was awkward at all. And that I should have come up and introduced myself. Wait, he wanted me to introduce myself??? What was I supposed to tell Grandma? Hiiiii I’m *blank* and I’m totally sleeping with *blank* so wonderful to finally meet you.
So basically Marti what I am asking, is when faced with these very public situations, what should one do? Act all cool and like you don’t care? Be flustered and awkward like I was? Or bite the bullet and introduce yourself to the family, without invite? I keep thinking I should have done that. But if he really wanted me to shouldn’t he have waved me over? Or texted me? How do you meet the family when you haven’t even defined the relationship? What should/could have ensued at Applebee’s that fateful Friday night?
Why is dating so complicated?
Thanks Marti luv ya xoxo,
Ambushed at Applebee’s
Dear Ambushed at Applebee’s,
First of all, whaaaaaaa? $1 Margaritas at Applebee’s? I know what I’m doing when I finish writing this stupid column.
Second of all, I’m sorry your margarita was spoiled by awkwardness. Margs are meant to spread love, not pain. I’d say you should ask for a refund, but I guess you get what you pay for.
I used to live with four girls, four very organized girls, who would label everything with tiny dots so everyone would know what belonged to who, where it went, and that if you put your goddamn hands on Stacey’s hummus there would be hell to pay.
The dot system, while old school, was generally effective because everyone knew the rules and understood the consequences (if you touch the motherfucking hummus you’re going to replace the motherfucking hummus, motherfucker).
Unfortunately, there’s no dot system for dating. As much as I would appreciate a well placed red dot to let me know what’s up, what we are, and if I can officially claim you as my moldy bag of carrot sticks, you can’t put stickers on people.
We, the much hated and misunderstood millennials, have built a dating system with almost no rules or accountability. On the surface, it seems great. We can date without the pressure to be in a committed relationship and get to know people without worrying about what comes next.
But there’s always a next. We don’t live, or date, in a bubble, and there’s always going to be some event or situation that requires rules we haven’t written.
So we panic. We run into bars and don’t answer texts and shove our heads under our pillows hoping it will all work itself out so we don’t have to admit that our feelings are hurt, that we’re confused, that we’re lonely and scared and frustrated that we don’t know what’s going on.
Because, like it or not, we can’t be casual and go with the flow all the time. I know we all want to be the cool girls, the easy going guys, the ones who let it go and let it happen and don’t set limits with labels and rules.
I once dated a guy for a year only to be told “We weren’t even dating” when we broke up. That’s insane. Even thinking about it makes me want to hightail it to Applebee’s and get a margarita for every month I wasted playing it cool.
We’re not robots, we’re living, breathing people who catch feelings and make mistakes and want to meet each other’s moms and grandmoms without worrying that we’re crossing some invisible line.
So what do we do? If we can’t organize our dating lives like my roommates organized our fridge, how do we get what we want without letting it be known that we do actually kind of sort of care about what comes next.
Well, we have to fess up. If we ever want to move forward and actually make something of our connections and feelings, we need to let go of being cool and non-confrontational. It’s boring. If I can run through the house wrapped in a towel screaming about who ate my frozen chicken, I can sit down and talk to the guy I’m seeing about what I want.
That doesn’t mean that every romantic entanglement has to end in a traditional girlfriend/boyfriend/partner type situation. You can decide to be friends with benefits. You can decide that you’re dating, but not exclusively. You can come to an agreement that you’re only going to shag every full moon when the clock strikes midnight and the sacrificial toenails have been clipped and gifted to the God of Ra. It doesn’t matter, just decide something. And when that something stops serving you, decide something else. Together.
Will it be easy? No. It never is. Will it save you some heartache and embarrassment when you’re caught at Applebee’s and hoping to meet your maybe-man’s mom without her thinking that you’re some margarita monster who just loves the homey, neighborhood feel of slamming a few cold ones back in a vinyl booth of Applebee’s after a long day of sexting her son? Hopefully.
Meeting the parents, meeting the friends, sleeping over, birthdays, holidays, fights, exchanging gifts and I Love You’s is always going to be weird and tingly. But isn’t that the point? There’s never going to be a rulebook, but there may be some hope if we’re able to stop pretending we don’t care and start taking ownership of all the things we left in fridge.
Marti
