KAMA

I placed the clipboard on the table, text up and facing Dylan, so he could read the first page himself. I waited. And waited. Finally, he spoke.

“And what if I don’t want to sign this?”

My heightened anticipation collapsed like a soufflé, half-baked and hit by cold air.

“If you don’t want to sign, don’t sign. It’s one-hundred-percent your choice to take part or not. As the form says, your participation is voluntary.”

“Obviously. What I’m asking is, what happens if I don’t sign? Will this date end now, or will we still have dinner together?”

“Again, I’ll leave that up to you. If you’d like to leave now, I totally understand. If you’re not interested in contributing to my thesis research but would still like to have dinner with me, that would be fine.” I could hear the disappointment in my voice, which Dylan clearly picked up on since he raised his eyebrows. “It would be great, I mean. Since we’re both already here…” Shut up, Kama. “Of course, I’ll pay for my own meal. Separate tabs. Well, I would pay either way, whether you sign or not, so I guess that’s a moot point.” Oh my gosh, shut up.

Dylan picked up the clipboard and pen and held them in front of his face so I couldn’t see his expression. He flipped the sheet over and, I assume, read the second page.

Of the twenty-three dates I’d started, three men had opted not to sign. Two had also opted not to dine.

Dylan placed the clipboard back on the table between us, unsigned. 

“So, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, I decide not to sign this informed consent document but want to stay and have dinner with you anyway. What happens if I want to go out with you again? Could there still be a second date? Are you dating men outside of your”—he made air quotes—“experiment?”

Was he kidding? He was making me flustered. I hated feeling out of control. We were in my territory. This was my very carefully controlled lab. And he was messing with everything.

“First of all, this isn’t an experiment. It’s research.” I emphasized the word. “Different.”

“Apologies. Research,” he said.

“And no. I’m not dating. I mean, not for real. I mean, yes, this is a date, but only for the purpose of gathering data for my thesis.”

“Interesting. Why aren’t you dating? For real, I mean?”

This sneaky bugger was using Jedi mind tricks on me, repeating my answer as a question. I needed water and waved to Jenny, our server and another friend. She gave me the ‘just a minute’ finger.

“Well, because… seriously? Would you want to date, for real, a woman who was actively dating other men for research?”

Dylan stared at me, and his smile grew large, showing perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. I ran my tongue over my own bottom row of not-perfectly-straight teeth and felt self-conscious. My palms were sweating and my heart rate was double timing. I felt like I was being cross-examined and hadn’t prepped my testimony. He looked totally calm.

“Well, yes, because that’s how dating works,” he said. “Tonight, I’m out for dinner with you. Research or not, this is a date, as far as I’m concerned. Last Saturday, I was out with a very nice woman named Tanya. I expect, at least I hope, I’ll be seeing her again this Saturday. I can’t say for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s been out with another man this past week. That’s dating, right? Meeting lots of people until you find one you gel with. All dating is research, isn’t it? Or has your dating research found something else?”

I found it hard to keep up. His logic sounded right but felt wrong. “I haven’t started summarizing my data yet. I’m still collecting. So it’s not showed me anything. But… Nobody’s ever asked me this before. They’ve either been in or out. I don’t know what to say. Except that you’re free to not sign. I’d be happy to still have dinner with you and then never see you again.”