The Triple Date

After I found out about my new job last Friday (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read all about it in the post below), my Girlfriend and I decided we needed to celebrate with dinner and a movie that evening; and with how tight things have been for us lately, this was like chartering a plane to Paris just for a light dinner on a Tuesday night.

So yeah, we were excited.

Originally it was just going to be the two of us going to dinner and then we were planning to meet our friends Liz and Dave later to see the new movie, “27 Dresses” starring Katherine Heigl. As luck would have it, we found out that our good friends Chris and Michelle were planning on going to see that movie at the same time anyways, so we decided to all go together; and then there we were – three couples going to the movies.

The six of us were tying to pull off the rare Triple Date.

And, just for an added degree of difficulty, we were faced with the toughest issue that comes with Triple Date Goes to the Movies: the seating arrangements while in the theater.

Seriously, how do you do it? On the far more common Double Date, the group always sits Boy-Girl-Girl-Boy (unless of course the girls don’t know each other or are mortal enemies), but when you throw in another Boy and another Girl, the whole thing gets more convoluted than an Oliver Stone plot.

As I see it, here are your options:

Boy-Girl-Girl-Boy-Girl-Boy – This doesn’t work because the girls will all want to sit together.

Boy-Girl-Girl-Girl-Boy-Boy – This doesn’t work either because now you have a couple separated (in some cases, however, that’s probably not the worst idea).

Suddenly, I had an idea, nay a dream, and even though I knew there was no way the girls were going to go for it, I had to try. Ever so casually, I suggested having all the girls sit together in one Girl Row and all the guys sit together in a Boy Row behind them.

As a man going to a chick flick, you have to understand the vision of getting to sit with two other guys during a girly movie and being able to go all “Mystery Science Theater 3000” on it with no repercussions.

I would go down in history as a pioneer.

Now there is one fundamental problem to all of this and that is that girls actually LIKE to sit next to their guys during romantic movies just so that they can hold hands, or lay their heads on your shoulder during the mushy parts of the movie.

When it’s just the two of you, that’s certainly not the worst thing in the world.

But it is common knowledge that on a Double or Triple Date, the guys are always going to be left to fend for themselves, so I knew that I had an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make chick flicks a little bit better for every guy every where, and I took it.

Imagine my surprise when the girls not only didn’t devour me when I tossed out my revolutionary idea but actually kind of liked it as well (see, I told you they all want to sit next to each other).

And I have to admit that despite the scary levels of estrogen in the room, the whole experience really wasn’t that bad. Having our own Boy Row was amazing (and apparently disturbing to the rest of the theater as no one else tried to sit in our row), the films’ lead actresses Heigl and Malin Akerman are both easy on the eyes, and we finally got a romantic comedy where the male lead (in this case, James Marsden) wasn't a way-too-perfect, way-too-sensitive tool.

I’m talking to you Matthew McConaughey!

What was even more surprising than the girls allowing the Boy Row and the Girl Row was their reaction after the movie. I guess since the film was so girly, they actually felt bad for us for having to sit through it. So basically, we got to watch a half-decent movie filled with beautiful woman, sit in our row and make fun of it during the sappy parts, AND we came off looking like troopers for “suffering through” such an estrogen-induced romp.

I am a pioneer indeed.

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POST SCRIPT…

The more I thought about it, I realized that given some time James Marsden’s performance in “Dresses” might actually make it into my Favorite Guys From a Romantic Comedy List. His character was cynical and sarcastic in a realistic way (Hmm… I wonder what made me like him) and ultimately made the movie bearable enough to get through.

My List has always been a short one and right now it's just Tom Hanks in “You’ve Got Mail” and Tom Hanks in “Sleepless in Seattle”. Hanks was a man’s man in those films and everyone else can just go home

Speaking of, can he please make another comedy someday soon?

Yes Tom, we know you are a legitimate actor, but somewhere in between your next war epic and human condition drama can’t you and Meg Ryan squeeze out another Nora Ephron comedy?

PLEASE?

Anyways, maybe I'm just over looking some obvious choices; so let me know who your Favorite Guys From Romantic Comedies are and we'll compile them all together or rank them them or something.

Post your thoughts here or email me at jmahler47@gmail.com.