Dating: The Opera

I am about as far away from Cro-Magnon Man as you can get, yet I have a certain nostalgia for caveman culture. When a guy wanted a women, he would just take a club, beat her over the head and then take her to his cave. Dating was that simple. Why can’t it be that simple now?

Now, it’s a whole song a dance with all sorts of games, twists, and complications. I can even imagine it being an Opera called Datare.

[Curtain up. Overture starts]. Everyone is in their debutant costumes, drinking, laughing and dancing at a ball. The light goes up on two people whose eyes meet all the way across the room. The guy, trying to impress the lady, does spins all the way across the room. He takes her hand and asks her to dance. She giggles and acts shy and says no. The guy asks again, and then they dance in the center of the stage.

The next scene, we see the guy at one place and the girl another. He calls her, and we see her with her friend laughing. They hang up and the guy dances and turns all over the stage while the girls gossip and laugh about what they think of him (“Comico”).

The next scene is the first date. The guy meets the girl and he bows and she curtsies. He does his little dance, and she does hers. Both are trying to show good moves but not their best moves. They keep a safe distance as to not get to close. He tries to impress her without revealing anything. She flirts but does not want to flirt too much, because she wants to hold back (“Partita”).

The next scene, we see the guy singing about how much he loves the girl (“Amore Mia”). Then immediately following, we see the girl with her friend again and they make fun of him. They sing about how he is not attractive, doesn’t make enough money, and was too nice to her (“Barzelleta”). In the finale for the act, we see the guy call repeatedly getting no answer. [Curtain down]

[Curtain up. Entre’Acte starts]. In the last act, we see the guy and girl wandering aimlessly down the street. The guy is glad to see her and she is belligerent to him. He sings to her begging for her to go out with him and she is so moved that she finally says yes (“Per Cortesia”).

They fall madly in love and sing to each other about how deeply they love each other (“Per Sempre”). Then he meets her parents briefly. The father then sings to the daughter about how she will never go out with such a guy of low class (“Classe Sociale”). The next scene we see the girl breaking it off with him saying that she loves him but can’t be with him (“No Posso”). Next we hear the guy talking about how crushed he is. He decides to challenge the father to a dual to win the hand of his love (“Spappoloto”). They have a dual, and the father kills the guy and leaves. We see the girl crushed, holding his dead body singing an aria about how she can’t live without him. Then, she kills herself. The father comes in and collapses at the sight of his dead daughter. [Orchestra finishes the climax of the music. Curtain Down. The end.]

Dating doesn’t get as crazy this Opera, but the whole dating process seems like a crappy game with a secret score card and timer with the jockeying for power where each person only reveals the “them” that they want the other person to know. They play games and try not to look to too eager or too apathetic. And then things get funky. Most of the time, either the relationship ends before it starts with no clear resolution as to when or even why, or they get into a relationship and don’t know how to get out. Sometimes a good murder-suicide seems like an ideal ending.

But we never stop and think about how absurd male and female relations are. Right now, as I type this, there is a guy in a bar somewhere talking with a girl. They are doing the normal “what’s your name what’s your sign” thing. They are talking about work, where they live, where they grew up, and what they like to do in their spare time, if they are lucky enough to have any. Sometime in the near future, he will have his penis in her. Am I the only one who finds that absurd? This is what we spend all of our time and energy worrying about? Is it worth it?

It’s much more fun to not worry about romantic involvement. The other night, I went out with my two female friends, and the one friends sister and Mom. I was the only guy with them. That’s fun, just hanging out with women and not being afraid to act silly or reveal too much. It’s just good old wholesome fun. Sometimes when you are trying to get involved with someone, them turning you down is a liberating experience, because now you feel that you can be yourself.

When you have experiences like that, you ask yourself, why the hell you would ever want to date. Well, we all do need “companionship”, and most of us want to start a family eventually. But you think to yourself that the Caveman way was so much easier. At times of frustration, you think, in the immortal words of Jimmy Buffet, “Why don’t we just get drunk and screw?”