Date Rape - (It’s not what you think)

There are no triggers to follow.

Disclaimer.
I am fully anticipating receiving at least one angry message about making light of date rape, by misusing the term.
I wish to first explain I am striving in my life to prove that feminist is not a bad word or a derogatory term and I apply the label to myself with pride.
Part of that is appreciating the diversity that comes with any group of people, feminists included.
And I’m a feminist with a dark sense of humour. So like it, or leave.

My partner and I have gotten to that lovely stage in a relationship where we have to organise to be romantic; otherwise we tend to work on our own computers, occasionally discussing plans for the weekend and negotiating chores.
What usually happens is around Thursday we divvy up the things we have to do on the weekend (work, rehearsals, training), stuff we have to do that is fun (birthdays, dinners, shows etc), and the stuff we want to do without being told to!
A separate section of this process is the negotiation of “date nights”. These are special; we wash prior. We don’t read the paper, or books. We turn off our cell phones. We find something we both want to do, and try to play nicely.

Organisation has kind of gone down the tubes in our house, due to the Man working all hours, and me being at the theatre or training most nights of the week.
So we trudge through treacle all week and know that we will both be busy all day on the weekends.
And all of a sudden it’s Saturday night.

A few weeks back we had nothing planned by the time we got to Saturday night.
We had a shower, got some food, and saw a movie.
We were walking home hand in hand and I said
“What a lovely date.”
He looked stricken.
“This is a date?”
I thought about it...
“Well, we are both clean, and outside the house, there is no one else along, and we are being nice- so yeah, I think so.”

“But I haven’t put much effort in! I wasn’t trying! You ought to give me a warning before we go on a date so I can bring on the A game.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hadn’t noticed.
“It’s ok, we had a nice night, it counts, go with it.”

He seemed genuinely concerned that I had tricked him into unwittingly having a lovely evening...

Odd.

Turns out, he is smart enough to know that date night is important enough to me that if he didn’t play the game I would be upset.
And if he doesn’t know there are expectations for an evening he could miss them by accident.

Fair enough.

I took him on a date, he didn’t consent, he wasn’t trying, and he had no chance to consciously agree to dating me and having fun.

Is that date rape?