The Date Dies (Apparently No One Gave It Mouth-To-Mouth)

...or so the New York Times breathlessly reports.  What follows is a brief history-come-eulogy of the dearly departed date.

The Date evolved from The Courtship, the elaborate and annoying process by which seventeen-year-old boys would find, stalk, and soon thereafter wed prepubescent girls. (When your life expectancy is thirty-five, you get your shit together pretty early on.) It is likely that people once mourned the death of the courtship, bemoaning, “Now that young man is taking out that girl without months of supervised, awkward sit-down dinners with her family, parlor talks by a Masterpiece Theatre-style fireplace, and the permission of her domineering father. WTF?” The 1950s brought on the classic date, notable for unfortunate terminology like “going steady” and “getting pinned” which mean all kinds of not-as-fun-as-they-sound things.

In its later years, The Date started to fade and, after a tumultuous battle with Free Love, never fully recovered. Free Love has since passed the torch of emotionless sexual encounter to its successor, Random Hook Up. Since 2000, The Date has been struggling along, growing weaker with every frat party and late night text message. It finally succumbed to the modern convenience of non-dating and passed away last night. The Date is survived by flowers (that no one buys anymore), movies (that we download online), and the doorstep kiss (now known as foreplay for the doorstep fuck. Well, maybe you go inside first.)