There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about a man who knows how to plan a date. Not necessarily an extravagant date. Extravagance is lovely\u2014I am hardly going to mount a philosophical objection to champagne, beautiful hotels, or a table with an excellent view\u2014but money and romance are not actually the same thing. What I mean is intention. A reservation made in advance. A place chosen because he thought I would like it. A message earlier in the day telling me what time he’ll pick me up. The little thrill of opening my closet and wondering, What kind of woman do I want to be tonight? That part may be my favorite. There is something delicious about getting ready for a man you genuinely want to see. The bath. The perfume. The ridiculous amount of time spent deciding between two dresses that, to the untrained male eye, probably look almost exactly alike. The heels that are objectively impractical but make my legs look so good that practicality seems like a character flaw. <\/p>\n
Then there is that moment when you meet. He looks at you. You look at him. And for half a second, before anybody says anything, you both know whether the effort was worth it. That is romance. I sometimes think modern dating has become so obsessed with efficiency that we’ve forgotten how pleasurable inefficiency can be. Coffee is efficient. “Want to hang out?” is efficient. Meeting halfway at a bar neither person particularly likes because it happens to be geographically convenient is extremely efficient. None of these things make me want to put on perfume. A beautiful date should have a little ceremony to it. I want the anticipation. I want a man to walk into a restaurant with his hand lightly at the small of my back. I want a bartender who knows how to make a proper martini. I want candlelight flattering enough that everyone in the room temporarily believes in miracles. I want dinner to take too long. I want us to order something we don’t need because it sounds wonderful. I want to steal a bite from his plate after insisting I didn’t want one. I want to discover three hours later that we’ve somehow become the last people in the restaurant. <\/p>\n
And please, gentlemen, understand something important: conversation is part of seduction. You do not have to perform. You don’t need a list of accomplishments, and I promise I do not require a quarterly earnings presentation over appetizers. Tell me something real. Tell me where you’d go tomorrow if you could wake up anywhere in the world. Tell me what you were like at seventeen. Tell me the dumbest thing you’ve ever bought. Tell me what makes you laugh when nobody else is around. Ask me questions you don’t already know the answers to. Curiosity is sexy. So is attention. Perhaps especially attention. I’ve been on expensive dates that felt cheap because the man spent half the evening looking at his phone. I’ve had relatively simple evenings that felt wildly luxurious because the man across from me made the rest of the room disappear. That is the secret nobody can put on a menu. Luxury is attention without hurry. And romance is really just attention with electricity running through it. <\/p>\n
After dinner, I don’t necessarily want the evening to end. Maybe we walk. Cities become more romantic at night. Manhattan certainly does. The noise softens a little. Windows glow. Restaurants spill golden light onto sidewalks. Somewhere, somebody is laughing too loudly. And walking beside someone you desire has its own strange intimacy. You’re not quite touching. Then your hands brush. Then perhaps they brush again. Eventually one of you stops pretending it was accidental. That tiny moment can be sexier than anything graphic could ever be. I think anticipation is terribly underrated. We live in a culture that wants everything immediately: food delivered immediately, answers immediately, entertainment immediately, affection immediately. But desire likes a little distance. A glance across a table. A hand lingering for one second longer than necessary. The elevator ride upstairs. The pause outside a door. That wonderful uncertainty about whether the evening is ending or only changing locations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about a man who knows how to plan a date. Not necessarily an extravagant date. Extravagance is lovely\u2014I am hardly going to mount a philosophical objection to champagne, beautiful hotels, or a table with an excellent view\u2014but money and romance are not actually the same thing. What I mean is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n