Overanalyzing is a skill that people accumulate over their years. Don’t deny it, we’ve all been there, every little detail matters.
When it comes to navigating the dating realm, most of us don't even know where to begin. Even something as simple as an outfit can be morphed into the most complicated, high maintenance mess.
The thought process that goes into determining whether x-cardigan will flow well with y-shirt and z-jeans (not to mention the shoes, hair, makeup and accessories), can be so technical that no man on earth will ever understand. And all of this happens before even he picks you up. In today's world, college dating especially has taken some interesting turns. Today's causal relationship involves less dressing up and more watching movies with friends, "going steady" has become an almost foreign concept, and a fancy restaurant complete with tiramisu has been replaced with the low-key drive-through frozen yogurt place down the street.
Froyo has aggressively taken over the diet of people all around, and often commences the beginning of relationships between people. Whether it be best friends, mentors, or dating relationships, froyo quite often lays at the heart of it all. The men here at Baylor are outnumbered 2:1, so the odds aren’t particularly in our favor. If a guy asks you to go get froyo with him, how do you know if he is just being friendly or taking you on a quick date? As ridiculous as this sounds, everyone knows that this is exactly how things happen. The breakdown of each detail is vital to the answer.
Start with context: how does he ask you? Does he ask in a group of people by merely suggesting you should all go sometime? Does he text you individually? Does he send you a snapchat?
The next observation would be what I like to call, “The Old School Rule”: Is he going to pick you up or have you drive? After you arrive to the glorious heaven-on-earth place we all love, the enormous amount of delicious, soft serve frozen yogurt, the endless choices of tasty toppings from fruit for you healthy-eaters to chocolate for the majority of the real world lies between you, your date and the cash register.
The complicated and awkward, "covering of the cost" plays a huge role in seeing if this thing is a date. As you both stand there waiting on the scale to measure your massive twelve-gram pile of pure perfection, the awkwardness tends to sink in. You pull out your wallet to pay for this mass of goodness, and he either moves quickly to add his to the scale and proceeds to pay, or lets you go ahead and take care of the cost...After that terribly awkward situation passes, someone initiates conversation.
Upon returning home, the analyzing begins, and you make your judgment. He asks in person: check. He picks you up and drives: check. He pays: check. He drops you off and says, “We should do this again, sometime,” MAJOR CHECK. If this doesn’t scream DATE, no combo of these factors will.
Okay, so maybe it's a bit irrational for these to be the sole identifications of a date. If you’re unsure that it was, use common sense to decide. If he pays, it probably means it was a date, but it is possible that you just have a great guy friend who values being a gentleman.
So, froyo: was it a date or just a friendly gesture? Overanalyzing might lead you to conclusions blown way out of proportion, but oblivion might make you miss something big. For the date answer: just go with the flow, loosen your strings a little bit, and have fun.
