Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and all the dudes want to take
all the chicks out on dates. But, buddy, before you ask that girl
if she wants to see the latest Christian Slater/Molly Ringwald
romantic comedy, I would like to offer up some better, less cliched
V-Day date fodder: miniature golf and bowling.
The problem is, which sport to choose? I conducted some highly
unscientific polling and consulted a British Imperialist in an
effort to determine which sporting date will most please the
sweethearts.
Miniature golf is totally romantic. It brings to mind warm
summer nights, cotton candy, small windmills, colorful golf balls
and kisses.
Forgotten childhoods, crumply score cards and love all converge
on the miniature golf course ““ where every errant putt means
an extra minute on the course with your June bug.
But oh, those bowling Sunday nights “¦ when the score meant
less to you than the girl you loved “¦ when no matter how
stupid you looked in those uncomfortable bowling shoes, she still
loved you.
The smell of spilt beer.
And soggy French fries.
Bowling promotes togetherness. You and your sweetheart laugh
together at those less fortunate than you: the gamey, bespectacled
bank teller, bowling alone.
The hotshot with the mullet from 1984.
When you leave the warm bowling alley and enter the crispy cold
night, giggly conversation about silly gutter balls and mullets
wafts up to the heavens, as you nervously reach for the hand of
your sweetie. Your eyes meet your girl’s, and you can’t
help but break into a childish titter and say, “I love
you.”
The rest is all cookie dough ice cream and Coca Cola
Classic.
Hope that imagery helps you with your decision. Once you choose
your sport, buddy, you need to come to terms with the fact that you
could lose. Many males can’t stand losing to a girl in either
sport on a date, and I personally feel this notion has nothing to
do with chauvinism. Rather, it’s a lasting reminder of
chivalry gone awry ““ the last vestige of man protecting his
girl. If he’s not superior to her at the bowling alley, how
will he perform elsewhere?
In an informal survey, I asked a bunch of girls whether they
would be bothered if they beat their date in either sport. The
general consensus was that a female would only think less of her
date if he were wigging out about his loss.
Just take your chill pills, guys.
The illustrious Calcutta personage and British Imperialist
Thacker Spink surely has something to say about the value of these
sporty dates.
“Bowling, Miniature Golf do not mean a thing when the
Gymkhana Club of Rangoon is empty, and when there’s not a
single Britisher left in Ranikhet,” Spink declared.
The long-winded Spink is prone to quoting his hero Field
Marshall Lord Roberts’ book "Forty-One Years in India,”
and generally circumvents the topic at hand.
“Golf and Bowling! How much it makes me think of my youth
on the Chowringhee in Calcutta,” Spink said. “Of those
frosty evenings in the Planters Club in Darjeeling. When the Union
Jack flew from the Cape to Cairo, from Karachi to Singapore. Where
have all the punkahs gone? Where is the Britisher of
Mandalay?”
Spink thus enjoys both sports, and finds either an acceptable
V-day date.
So, when you go miniature golfing or bowling, remember Thacker
Spink, remember the monsoon in Rangoon, the golden Shwedagon
Pagoda, and ole’ Calcutta on the Hooghly River.
Oh, and let her win.
Miller will spend V-Day in Calcutta. E-mail him at
dmiller@media.ucla.edu.