It's the year 2000 and a woman can do anything a man
can do, right? The old rules of dating have been tossed
out the window. See a guy you like? Just pick him up.
Pay the tab if you want, or split the bill if you feel
less than generous. No hassles, no headaches. In fact,
Sadie Hawkins Day, that anachronistic occasion when women
are "allowed" to make the first move on men, is about
as necessary as a sanitary-napkin belt.
Wrong.
On Feb. 29, the bonus day that comes around only once
every four years, Sadie Hawkins rears her aggressive little
head, and ladies, you'd better take advantage of it. We
need a day on which we're free to make a date as much
now as our beehive-spraying foresisters did in the 1950s.
At least it's one tradition that doesn't hold us back!
When I was in middle school, I had no idea who Sadie
Hawkins was. I vaguely imagined her to be an associate
of Susan B. Anthony or one of Lizzie Borden's cronies.
As anyone a generation older could easily have told me,
she was a character in Al Capp's popular Li'l Abner
cartoon strip, which enjoyed a 43-year run beginning in
1934. Set in the backwoods hollow of Dogpatch, U.S.A.,
Abner featured drawling, barefoot hillbillies with
names like Marryin' Sam and Unwashable Jones.
The buck-toothed, warty-nosed Sadie first appeared in
the strip in November 1937. She couldn't snag herself
a husband, so her father the mayor devised a new, official
holiday. All bachelors were required to participate in
a footrace. They were pursued by the single ladies of
the community and, if captured, would immediately be subjected
to a shotgun wedding. Similar chase-'em-down events became
popular on college campuses in the '50s, and the once-fictional
holiday lives on as a dance theme in high schools across
the country. In fact, Popular, one of the many
WB network shows that dissect teendom, recently featured
an episode in which Sadie Hawkins threw a wrench in everyone's
spokes.
Spinsterhood no longer carries the stigma that presented
such a dilemma for Sadie back in the backwoods; today,
if a woman is assertive, she's not perceived as desperate
or out of line. But that doesn't mean it's easy. Making
the first move is always hard, and the weight of traditional
gender roles--no matter how much we reject them on a rational
level--persists. Even the most self-assured women still
may balk at being deemed too aggressive. After all, we
want to hold onto our feminine mystique.
So, on the strength of my qualifications--being single
and female--I offer a bit of sisterly advice on how best
to take advantage of Sadie Hawkins Day:
Don't do dinner.
I recommend initiating a date
that doesn't evoke the rigid traditions that make us all
feel a little uncomfortable. Asking someone to dinner
is risky. My buddy "Andy" says that if a girl asked him
out to dine, he would still feel obligated to pay. You
don't want to end up fighting over the bill, and going
halfsies can be just as tricky as insisting to cover the
tab. And what if you have nothing to say to each other?
Dinner tends to drag on for a length of time that drinking
coffee doesn't. There's always a mocha shop nearby with
some comfy chairs, and maybe a few ice-breaker board games.
Don't shilly-shally.
Be straightforward. If you've
ever gone out with someone as a friend and learned halfway
through that he meant it as a date, you know how awkward
that can be. It's better to lay your cards on the table.
My friend "Kate," for example, didn't want to come on
too strong, so she left "him" a message saying she would
be at a certain bar at a certain time, suggesting that
he "show up if he felt like it." It seemed like a good
way to avoid flat-out rejection...until he didn't show
up.
Of course, there's still such a thing as going overboard.
When I ran up to a complete stranger on New Year's Eve
and asked, "Will you be my boyfriend?" the answer was
no.
To get to the point tactfully, try leading with a compliment,
such as, "I had a really good time dancing with you at
that party." This will make your interest clear without
being embarrassingly explicit.
Do a different date.
Ask him to do something that
reveals a few of your quirks and makes you feel confident.
Show him how you see things, whether it's from Atwater's
or the Skyline Tavern. A new gallery or Stark's Vacuum
Cleaner Museum. The Rose Festival Fun Center or Oaks Park
during off season. Cocktails or a walk work well, too,
because you can linger for hours or duck out in a hurry.
My favorite excursion is the obscure suburban thrift-store
circuit, because I feel like we're on a secret mission.
I find out whether or not he thinks velour is ever a good
idea, and he learns about my Fisher-Price habit up front.
Also, Portland can be a very small town, and this plan
will decrease the chances of running into an ex.
Don't freak if St. Sadie leaves you hanging.
If
it just doesn't click, don't sweat it. Sometimes, there's
no good way to ask him out--don't assume that you said
something wrong. There are other crawdads in the gully,
as Sadie might have said. And there's an infinite number
of ways that women and men get together, not to mention
women and women, and men and men. A girl taking the lead
is, after all, just the tip of the unconventionality iceberg.
Maybe you'll both just happen to get trapped in the broom
closet with a bottle of Bushmills during a company party,
or end up on the same 18-hour train ride.
One of my friends suggested titling this section "Grasping
at Straws," but it's important to recognize opportunities
in odd places. Sadie Hawkins Day is one of them. And so
is writing an article about Sadie Hawkins Day.
S--, will you go out with me?
