COLUMN: Dating the enemy turns into fun

As both a jazz enthusiast and devoted fan of 20th century poet Langston Hughes, I was very excited when I found out Ron McCurdy was coming to the University of South Dakota to present Hughes’ epic poem “Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz.”

I had been contemplating a date with Blaine since he mentioned my column earlier in the semester.

I felt this event was a great opportunity to finally act on my idea.

I see no reason why outdated gender roles should continue to dictate the rules of the dating game in the 21st century, so I made all the necessary arrangements for our date.

Unfortunately for Blaine, I chose not to immediately reveal my identity to him. I felt it would be far more interesting if Blaine didn’t know his date was with a rival columnist.

Blaine was led to believe he was going on a date with an English major named Elizabeth from the randomly selected town of Trent, S.D. This is not entirely a lie. My real name is Elizabeth, and one of my majors is English. I lied about my birthplace for the sake of protecting my identity, as I am actually from Washington, D.C.

Luckily, Blaine was a pretty good sport about the whole thing. He even told me during our pre-concert chat he had a feeling he was being set up. In spite of this, he seemed like he had a great time on our date.

As for myself, I have a very favorable view of our date. The conversation was pleasant, the music was fantastic and I was actually somewhat disappointed we had to call it quits so early. I look forward to catching up with him over drinks at Carey’s sometime.

I had such a great time I have no choice but to forfeit my previous man-hating ways. As I am adamantly against discrimination in all forms, it is very hypocritical and sexist of me to make unfair generalizations about men just because I had a handful of bad experiences.

Maybe, just maybe, there are some nice guys out there, and not every single man is a selfish jerk who only cares about getting laid. Maybe the mistakes of my youth were just mistakes, and there is a great guy somewhere out there waiting for me.

Thank you, Blaine, for showing me the light. You can be sure I’ll never make another rude assumption about men ever again.