A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and a can of hairspray

So Romantic Date Guy* and I saw American Graffiti last night in Grant Park as part of the Chicago Outdoor Film Festival.

* It looks like I’ll be having more and more adventures with this fella, so he’s officially getting a nom de blog. And everything we do together ends up being bodice-rippingly romantic—even if that wasn’t our intention. We’ve already enjoyed concerts and walks and gardens and fireworks in Millennium Park, dinners at romantic restaurants, fireworks along the lakefront, breathtaking views of the city from the top of his highrise, long talks with endless giggles, millions of dollars’ worth of text messages that are mostly our favorite Sondheim quotes, hours of public hand-holding—really all that’s missing is soft-focus footage of us walking into the sunset in linen pants and maybe a heartfelt theme song. Preferably by Sondheim. So I’m grabbing Romantic Date Guy as a nickname before Lifetime trademarks it for some movie of the week. But! It’s been a whopping 18 days (not that anyone’s counting) since we were fixed up by some friends, and I really don’t want to be the guy who always seems to have a different boyfriend of the month (especially after my last false alarm), so currently we are two officially single men who happen to spend every free moment together. And we have the exact same initials so we’d never have to change our monogrammed towels if we got married. Not that either of us has entertained that thought.

Where was I? Oh, yes: movies in the park. Which are a great idea in theory, but they’re really kind of a pain in the ass in reality; since they’re outside, you have to sit on the ground, which always makes my butt hurt, and the 10,000 other people around you have no qualms about talking and walking around and making noise and blocking your view, and the screen is so low that anyone in any kind of chair in front of you totally obstructs the movie. But last night was more about the romantic date (which was awesome) than American Graffiti (which neither of us really thought was that interesting anyway, except for the women’s hair, which was fabulous). And we sat with a bunch of my co-workers I didn’t really know, so that was kind of awkward since we were kind of on a date. But one of them took a picture of us and sent it to me this morning, so photographic proof now exists that we are the reigning poster boys for romantic nausea. Not that any of you are going to see any pictures of us until we have a few more weeks of romantic dates under our belts. It just seems more prudent that way.

But back to last night: We held hands under the stars and brought cookies and other picnic-y stuff and rented little chairs to protect my delicate bottom and rested our bare feet on a beach towel I’d brought as a sorry excuse for a blanket, and once again Romantic Date Guy totally lived up to his name.