dinner and a movie?

I have lots of male friends who are not single. I'm not interested in dating them, for the most part, and I would never put the moves on someone who's involved. I think it's fine to have friendships with people of all genders without assuming romance.

I have a married friend I go out with now and then. I don't intend to date him, we just pal around (have you heard this before?) and he was nice to talk to when I was busting up with my squeeze. One of those guys who's willing to give advice and be nice to a girl in need.

One night we were out, just drinks and chit chat. He invited me back to check out his studio space, which I'd never seen but always wanted to. We did, it was cool, but at one point I felt like we were on a date. I left, no weird goodbyes, I forgot about it.

Anyway, one night we wanted to hang out, and he suggested dinner after work. I suggested any of a half dozen cheap joints I haunt; he suggested a restaurant near where I work. I'd never been there. I'm not picky (apart from being a vegetarian), so I agreed.

Unusually, I got there early, The joint was hardly such, low lighting and a menu with entrees over $10 each, hardly my scene. I waited outside for my pal, who was not so late.

Next thing you know, we're killing a bottle of decent wine of a type I'd never had (he ordered), he's looking too intensely into my eyes as he talks about whatever. He tried to pay for dinner, I threw down half. A girl I kind of know was at the restaurant, & I said hi. She was acting like a complete weird-o. Dinner done, we left and parted amicably and unromantically outside.

Next day I got an email from the girl apologizing for acting like a spazz, but she thought she was interrupting a date. (Why would it be ok to act like a spazz if someone's on a date?) I said she hadn't, but then I realized I was accidentally dating a married man.

S&M

I was living in a dorm in college and I was sort of friends with this hippie who lived in my hall (well, in truth almost everyone in my dorm was a hippie).

We went out to the movies and got drunk on Fresca and vodka while watching John Waters' Serial Mom, a movie that had been protested by a crazy woman on campus who decried it as anti-feminist because everyone knows men are far more likely to be serial killers. Now I'm a feminist, but I am one with a sense of humor, and that woman gave feminists a crazy bad name. After the movie we went to the cemetery and continued drinking on Emily Dickinson's grave, behind the fence under the tree.

Was this a date? If I wasn't dating someone else and if I wasn't totally against dating hippies and if I had ever looked at this particular hippie with anything resembling lust, I might have thought so. We went back to our dorm and parted amicably and both lived through the night, probably regretting it the next day.

Shortly after this (date?) my boyfriend broke up with me for about the millionth time.
I vowed to drink that night until I couldn't see, a state of extreme drunkenness I had not yet achieved in my short life. My hippie friend secured the bottle, and before long I was fighting him in the hallway, howling like a banshee, unable to see.

Somehow I survived this night, too, went to bed alone, didn't even consider making out with the hippie. Probably puked my guts out at some point. At least I hope I did, considering I had poisoned myself with vodka or something.

Next day I was hating life and the hippie was covered in scratches and bruises from my violent blind drunkenness. I apologized sincerely, but he was a good sport.

Years later I was in that college town visiting with an old professor, and we ran into the hippie. Much to my horror, he told her I had both satisfied his curiosity of and turned him off S&M!

I guess if the result is making up someone's mind about sado-masochism, then it's a date, accidental or not.