All About
Crossing The Line

11APPIIMIS

Pickup Softball

B'nai B'rith Leadership
Network presents its second
season of pickup softball.
Schedule: July 26, Aug. 9,
Aug. 23 at Pioneer Park;
July 12 at North Farmington
High School. All games
begin at 11 a.m. Karen
Safran, (248) 426-9520.

Register now!

Jewish Professional Singles
trip to Toronto, July 17-19.
Cost: $197 per person, dou-
ble; $307, single. Lisa
Boose, (248) 353-5811.

White Water Rafting with
Congregation Beth Shalom
and Tamarack Adult
Adventures. Aug. 21-23,
ages 22 and up, "Shabbat-
friendly," $185-200. (248)
661-0600.

Saturday, July 4

Progressive barbecue/fireworks.
6:30 p.m., in Huntington
Woods. Jewish Professional
Singles. Cost: $8. Cindy, (248)
542-9166.

Monday, July 6

Hillel of Metro Detroit Coffee
House Night. 9 p.m. Lonestar
Coffee Co., 207 S. Woodward,
Birmingham. (313) 577-3459.

Wednesday, July 8

Singles jog and walk at
Inglenook Park in Southfield,
with Jewish Professional Singles.
7:30 p.m. David, (248) 398-
9370.

Sunday, July 12 .

Summer birthday dinner party,
Jewish Professional Singles. 7
p.m. Cost: $8. Cindy, (248)
542-9166.

Can a "taken" but unmarried single really hang out
with someone of the opposite sex?

ALLISON KAPLAN
Special to The Jewish News

E

ere's the scenario: You're
new at the office, still in
the process of seeking out
anyone not old, not mar-
ried and not weird, with whom you
might want to share an occasional
lunch, or if things look really
promising, even a friendly dinner.
You (you're a woman, by the way)
work with a guy around your same
age, who keeps stopping by your
desk to talk about music and bars
and all the fun stuff he does with his
many friends. One day, he sends you
an e-mail saying he and some bud-
dies are going to hear a band after
work, and he wants to know if you'll
come along.
Here's the dilemma: You have a
boyfriend. Maybe not a serious
boyfriend — you're not exactly
engaged, and you maintain your own
circle of friends. But a boyfriend,
nonetheless.
Somehow, in these numerous con-
versations with your colleague, the
boyfriend has never come up — not
that he would. You're not the type to
ramble on about that aspect of your
personal life.
And there's no real reason to men-
tion the boyfriend now; going to
hear a band at a noisy bar with a
group of people is hardly a date. At
least, it doesn't seem like a date, if
you're a woman.
Guys, however, think pretty much
everything is a date. Even inviting a
woman to hang out with a bunch of
guys at a bar — that counts, one of
my very single male friends tells me.
Why would he invite a woman if he
wasn't interested?
Why, indeed.
Assuming you want to go hear the

Allison Kaplan is a freelance writer in
Chicago.

band, you have two options. You
could graciously accept and then
casually mention your boyfriend
might want to go too, because you
don't want him to get the wrong
idea.
Or, you could keep quiet and then
later in the evening, when he starts
leaning in suggestively, you could
drop an innocent comment like,
"Oh, you like the Red Wings too?
My BOYFRIEND is a big hockey
fan."
That always goes over real well.
The way I feel, it's a lose-lose situ-
ation. If you tell him you're taken
the minute he makes a friendly ges-
ture, he thinks you're presumptuous
and blows you off.
If you wait until he's already stuck
wasting an evening
on a girl with a
boyfriend, an evening
that was supposed to
just be friendly, he
thinks you're a tease.
Prepare again for the
icy cold shoulder.
I asked several of
my male friends, tal-
ented daters all,
which they would
prefer: the immediate
relationship clarifica-
tion or the delayed,
subtle letdown.
One friend, let's call him Rico
Suave, declared that he'd want to
know if the woman had a boyfriend
right away, because honesty is so very
important to him. Holding back
about the boyfriend, Rico said,
would be less than truthful.
Fine, I told him. So you casually
ask this woman to get a bite to eat
after work one night. She - says great,
let me just make sure my
BOYFRIEND didn't already make
plans. Because the woman is honest,
you would be amenable to that situa-
tion? Not exactly, Rico confessed. "I

don't even want to deal with that" is
how he feels about hanging out with
a girl who has a boyfriend.
Another friend, Don Juan, says he
could care less if a girl has a
boyfriend. A boyfriend is just a tem-
porary inconvenience, he quips. If
Don doesn't spend time with her,
she'll never see that she's with the
wrong Juan.
So I took the question to my very
own boyfriend. He, too, went in for
the honesty thing. While he wouldn't
necessarily run from a woman with
the boyfriend, he'd certainly turn off
the charm. Why waste the energy of
being so adorable?
That would have been a fine
enough answer, if not for one minor
little memory lapse. You see, I was
dating another
when I met my cur-
rent beau in college.
He claims he was
devastated by the
news I was _taken.
But he still wrote
me funny notes in
class and shared
his Pop Tarts and
made all sorts of
cute, yet innocent
gestures that con-
tributed to our
becoming the best
of friends.
How nice it was to just be friends
with a man — no pressure, no male
bravado.
Of course, that all changed the
minute I left that other guy.
Suddenly, my current boyfriend
slapped on the cologne and wanted
to pay for dinner.
So, male-female friendships are
improbable. No breakthrough there.
But the moral of the story, men, is
don't be so quick to dismiss just
being friends.
You never know when all that
boyish charm could pay off.

«N

-

Y

BOYFRIEND
is a
big hockey
fan.

7/3
1998

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