No-date zones

Summer is the time for lovin’. This is obvious to all. The docile summer winds have carried with them innumerable girls in lightweight cotton dresses and guys in aviators, walking alongside each other and looking like they are in some sort of Tampax commercial: Girls – you don’t want to miss out on this, do you? Of course not. Now toss that bulky pad and get livin’! \nAs do most things I encounter in life, the similarity of all these couples has eventually started to frustrate me. \nDon’t get me wrong – seeing happy couples around is often very nice. It can be refreshing. But, when one has to maneuver around 20 pairs of similarly dressed couples at the farmers’ market or movie theater, she begins to notice some things. One thing in particular: You’re all on the same date. \nI am a proponent of love. I am also a proponent of going on dates and enjoying the company of loved ones. However, I am not a proponent of generic things. Or of being blocked on my way to delicious organic broccoli. \nIt is for these reasons that I have compiled a short list of red-flag dates. Couples: If you decide to get up in the morning, stretch, embrace each other, kiss with your mouth closed and pretend it doesn’t taste like sewer water, and then decide to go on any of these dates, I ask you to please reconsider. Nobody likes to be generic. And I don’t like to be frustrated by the fact that you are generic. Okay, I kind of do, but only sometimes.\nPlease just avoid these places:\nFirst, please stop going to the farmers’ market together. I know, I know, it is an all-time Bloomington favorite location for couples that think they are special. However, I find it simply impossible to believe that this many young couples live together. It’s just not all that common. That said, why are you buying your groceries together? It’s unnecessary, and everybody sees through you.\nSecond, I see a surprising number of couples at public pools. Too often, they are making out in the pool. To that, I think we all know how to respond. Even the couple in question knows how to respond when it comes down to it: Um, there are children present. Go make out in your bathtub. \nThird, the “Sex and the City” movie has, devastatingly, been infiltrated by couples. I am not making this up. I have seen this movie twice in theaters (So far! Right, ladies?) and both times I did the respectable thing and went with girlfriends. However, while I was there I saw a surprising number of couples. OK, boys: You’re not extra-caring or extra-special because you take your girlfriend to see this film. We all see past you, even if she doesn’t. Girls: You haven’t somehow trained your man to be great and attentive. You simply have no girlfriends. \nAnd just to clarify from earlier, women: You’re all wearing the same dress.