Reason 785 Why Dating is Rough: Sushi Dan

I’ve always been a hater of meeting for “just a drink”.

I mean, come on. Even if shit goes wrong, it’s not as if we can’t put our nose to the grindstone and power through a meal together, right?

As someone who has had her fair share of less than stellar first dates, I know the feeling of knowing ten minutes in that the evening is shot. Pit in stomach, thinking of all the things I could be doing with my evening instead of sitting here, making small talk with you.

But really, how bad could things get? If we’ve agreed to go out at all, can’t we at least invest the time it takes to order and eat a plate of food? After all, let’s face it, we’re not that busy. Besides, deigning only to a drink seems so, well, pessimistic.

I’ve now revised my policy on all this. Why, you might ask? Two words:

Sushi Dan.

Lemme set the scene. Last week, I was meeting a colleague for a sushi lunch when I met this hotter than hot guy. I’m talking hot. We chatted, there was rapport, business cards were exchanged. We seemed to have a boatload in common. I couldn’t believe my luck. So when he called for a date, I was stoked.

The date he suggested was right up my ally, a little too good to be true, actually: tossing in the park followed by cooking risotto together at his house. (Now if you’re reading this and find it a little odd that I agreed to go to a total stranger’s house for dinner on a first date, I’ll give you that one. I wasn’t entirely comfortable at the thought, but I went for it.)

When we met, he was as hot as I recalled. Hotter, actually. Things were off to a great start when about 10 minutes in, he casually mentioned he was flying home to Michigan this weekend to visit his? You guessed it, girlfriend.

Crap. I immediately took a mental inventory of the possible reasons as to how I had wound up on a date with an unavailable guy. Had I misread the signals, and this date was a “friends” thing? Are hot guys really so desperate for platonic friends that they call up girls they meet in sushi restaurants and offer to cook risotto for them? Didn’t gel. Perhaps I had somehow blown it already, and he was aborting the mission by making up a fictitious girlfriend? After all, the very first thing I do to get an unwanted guy off my trail is to start name-dropping a made up ball ‘n chain. But no, it was too early in the date. We’d barely gotten past the basic get-to-know-you stuff, and at no point thus far had my foot even come close to being in my mouth. Maybe they’re on the verge of breaking up, and he’s too stupid to not mention her? After all, they are long distance. Honestly, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it was the best I could come up with. In any case, I made the call to stick around and get to the bottom of it.

I mean, I did mention he was hot, right?

A bit later, about five minutes into the 60+ minute risotto recipe, he mentioned her again. This time I took the bait and was told that they are allowed to see other people.

Sigh. Experience has taught me that these things rarely turn out well for the new person, and quite frankly I’m just not interested in the drama and complication. I had a feeling that at the end of the evening I would likely request that he be in touch if his GF ever became an ex-GF, but until then, best of luck. So, mystery solved, but now definitely a wasted evening.

Correction. It would’ve been a wasted evening if he’d left it at that. But no, he continued. Seems as though they’ve moved to their current status somewhat recently, and surprise, surprise, she’s having a hard time adjusting. And he let me know that he feels it’s really important that his girlfriend know that she can reach out to other people since he’s not around. So this weekend, when he goes home, they are going to get together with another couple they know. And they’re going to, you know, all be together.

At this, I couldn’t help myself. I laughed out loud, and food shot out of my mouth. I’m talking, hummus hit the wall. Between gulps of laughter, I clarified, “So basically, you’re going home to have an orgy?”

Without a hint of humor, he replied, “well, yeah.”

Woah.

It soon became evident that he was quite eager to talk about this, and seeing as how I was no longer eager to impress, the date turned into a mini-inquisition on the subject of polygamy. I indulged myself not only in asking the blunt questions but also in being a bit “unplugged”, shall we say, in my commentary.

So without further ado, I give you Poly-Amour 101, According To Sushi Dan. Subtitle, At Least The Risotto Was Good.

Khop: In my limited experience with open relationships, it seems that more often than not there is one person who is into it, and then there is another person who pretends to be into it for fear that objecting will result in losing the person altogether. Tell me about that in general and specifically with you and your girlfriend.

Sushi Dan: In general that is often the case. Specifically, though, well…. that is also the case. If I agreed to be monogamous, I’m sure that’s what she would prefer. But, I think she’s slowly coming around. At least I think she is.

Khop: Huh. Would never have put money on that being your answer. And by “would never” I mean “would definitely”.

Khop: You’ve mentioned your relationship to your girlfriend as being “committed”. Tell me, where is the “commitment”?

Sushi Dan: Oh, well I’m very committed to her. I’m committed to being there for her emotionally and to calling her and visiting her and doing all the other stuff that goes along with being a boyfriend. It’s just that I’m free to see other people, too.

Khop: Oh, so what you mean by “committed” is that you commit to keeping her on the roster, most likely in the starting line up. But you're definitely looking to expand the team and evenly distribute the playing time. You commit to continue sleeping with her - that is, when you're not sleeping with somebody else.

Sushi Dan: Well, yes, I suppose you could put it that way.

Khop: Ok, just checking.

Khop: So we’ve established that the physical aspect of your relationship has no exclusivity clause. What about the emotional side? Who does the emotional commitment go to? Especially since sex for women quickly leads to emotional bonding. What happens when either of you bond with someone else? And are the women you sleep with just being used as warm bodies?

Here Sushi Dan took the time to explain to uneducated me the difference between swinging, open relationships and poly amorous relationships. Turns out we’re apparently talking about different things here, in an attempt, it seems, to take one Very Bad Idea and give it several layers. The first two are intended to be only physical. Swinging typically occurs with both parties initially present, while open means that the creeping around town is done on one’s own time but with full permission. In both, theoretically the emotional attachment remains exclusive. In poly amorous relationships each partner gets to have their cake and eat it too, as “multiple committed, intimate relationships are acceptable and encouraged.”

Guess which camp Sushi Dan and his lucky GF were in? Yep, not only was the position of girlfriend already filled, but Sushi Dan claimed to have funding for additional girlfriend headcount.

Pun entirely intended.

Khop: Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

Sushi Dan: 26.

Khop: ahhh….

Khop: Have you considered a move to Utah?

Sushi Dan: Now you’re just mocking me.

Khop: You're just realizing this now?

As he walked me home, Sushi Dan asked me how I felt about this, if I would consider going out with him again or if all this poly-amour talk had me “running scared”, subtly implying that if I objected, my old fashioned thinking indicated a character flaw in me. I politely told him that while I generally subscribe to a “whatever floats your boat” kind of philosophy in life, none of this did, in fact, float my particular boat. I thanked him for his transparency, but told him that he’d have to keep looking for the next addition to his harem. In a display of social and self awareness that had been glaringly lacking from the rest of the evening, he said, “well, at least you’ll have a good story to tell, right?”

True dat, Sushi Dan, true dat.

Call me old fashioned, but poly-amours need not apply,

khop

PS: Thoughts?