Married dating-- worth the effort?

I've only been on one blind date in my life. Once, when things were "off again" with my long-term-sometimes high school boyfriend, my friend Kelly fixed me up with her boyfriend's best friend. The whole time I was getting ready, I kept looking at myself in the mirror and thinking, "I'm probably not even going to like this guy. I don't know why I'm going to the effort of trying to look good for him." It turns out that I didn't like him, and spent a lot of that night sitting as far away from him as possible in an orange Howard Johnson's booth, trying to signal to him through my body language that I was not interested.

But really, that's another story. For the last fourteen years, I've been dating a guy I do like. A lot. But recently I've been wondering if the effort I have to put into our dates is really worth it. I mean, even a night at home eating frozen pizza and watching college basketball isn't too terrible every once in a while, and a night eating takeout from the Indian restaurant and watching a movie together sounds downright blissful.

Last night's date is a case in point. He called from work on Wednesday to say that a doctor he works with wanted us to come to dinner on Friday night. That gave me 48 hours to find someone who would be willing to babysit over a holiday weekend (teacher in-service day, although Bryce insisted school was off in honor of groundhog's day). I went through my list of usual babysitters and everyone was busy. I finally found someone, who called me back the next day to cancel. I scrambled again, and found someone else (twelve years old and I hadn't ever met her, which didn't exactly sit well with me, but I was getting desperate). Of course, Eddie would never in a million years start calling teenage girls to ask them to come watch our kids. He says he always avoided calling teenage girls even when he was a teenager.

So yesterday arrived. We were supposed to be at the dinner at 6:30. I started getting ready around 4-- making dinner for the kids, getting them in their pjs, cleaning the house up so the babysitter wouldn't be disgusted, writing a note with all of the important contact numbers, getting the toothbrushes and bedtime drinks ready, bathing Maren, and all of those other things you've gotta do before you go out. I used to think it was an effort just do to my hair and makeup and pick out an outfit, but now that seems like more of an afterthought. Eddie waltzes in with just enough time to play video games with Bryce,throw some pizza at the kids and get himself dressed.

When I was a kid being babysat and a teenager doing the babysitting, it always seemed like the dad was the designated babysitter-picker-upper. It makes sense, right? The mom stays home to get herself ready and make the final mad dash to get the house picked up and threaten the kids. But sometime in the 15 years since I stopped babysitting, things have changed. Apparently Lionel Ritchie and Jude Law have made it so it's no longer PC for the guy to pick up a babysitter. Or so Eddie tells me. I think he really just wants to get in an extra 20 minutes on Cougarboard while I'm off fetching.

By the time we're out the door, I'm exhausted. It almost seems like it's not worth the effort. It's enough to make frozen pizza and college basketball sound like a pretty good night.

--originally published 2/3/07