Confessions of A Naughty Girl

The Hanging Date

I feel it's my bloggerly duty to inform you of new trends and fads sweeping the nation. After all, what else is a blog for? Surely not bitching about one's love life (or lack thereof).

In the interest of being informative, for once, I must have you know that there's a phenomena out there that is spreading like wildfire. It has infiltrated our towns, our neighborhoods, and our cities. And it's only getting worse.

Thus far, I know of no cure. There are things that we can all do to help prevent it, and there are definitely some ways of tackling it, but the only way to really nip it in the bud is to abstain, and we all know that's no fun.

The phenomenon is...drum roll please...the Hanging Date.

The Hanging Date usually appears on a Thursday or Friday, and is found in its accompanying habitat, the Hanging Email.

Allow me to explain best with a scenario.

Say you're talking to someone. Or involved. Or quasi-involved. Or just f*cking. Any way you look at it, there's something going on, and you are both aware of this. So you roll into work that day, and have a seat. And then somewhere in the middle of the day (usually the afternoon) you get an email like this:

"Hey, what's up? Hope you're having a good week. Pretty busy here, but everything's cool. Haven't seen you in a while - we need to get together soon/head out sometime/get naked and do it at some point. Later!"

This, my friends, is a Hanging Date. It is a reference to going out. A reference that does not leave opportunity for coordination of logistics. It is the email equivalent of a text message - the person reached out and made the communication, but doesn't necessarily want to go through the "hassle" of actually communicating voice-to-voice. (Which, by the way, since when was a phone call such torture? I mean, I love text messaging, but I use that as a supplement to other conversations. I don't assume I'm still best friends with someone because I texted them three times in the last week.)

Anyway, I find the Hanging Date to be disingenuous and irritating. How does one respond to that? It's not a specific request with date and time. It's just thrown out there, like caution to the wind, never to be acted upon until the next Hanging Date is initiated.

It's really quite lose-lose-lose. You lose if you respond because you're then perpetuating this painfully silly dialogue. You lose if you don't respond because then you look like a bitch, and if you like the person, looking like a bitch (in most cases) is not going to help your cause. And then finally, you lose again because you don't get to see the person. Major bummer.

So at this point you're probably thinking that I am just making shit up. But the truth is, the Hanging Date is out there. And it's happening all the time. In addition to being a Hanging Datee myself multiple times in the past two weeks, TWO of my good girlfriends have been on the receiving end of the Hanging Date recently as well.

A reasonable person might say, "Well, if someone keeps making bullshit plans with you, then they're probably just trying to be nice."

Okay Reasonable, point taken.

But what's interesting about this phenomenon is that it's viral. And compulsive.

I have received three hanging date emails from ROMP in the last week. Every few days I get some sort of varying form of the above, and every time I see him in my box (my inbox, that is), I get excited, pensive, analytical, and ultimately annoyed.

What do you have to say about that? Any suggestions?

posted by KA @ 10:38 AM