She came up with a list of the 12 best dates in fiction for HowAboutWe, including:The Namesake by Jhumpa LahiriRead about the other entries on the list.
Gogol and Moushumi
Childhood family friends meeting after a long estrangement as adults at a bar, segues to dinner.
“They meet at a bar in the East Village, a place Moushumi had suggested when they’d spoken on the phone. It’s a small, dark, silent space, a single square room with just three booths against one wall. She’s there, sitting at the bar reading a paperback book, when he arrives, and when she looks up from its pages, though it is she who is waiting for him, he has the feeling that he is interrupting her. [About an hour later...] He hadn’t planned to take her to dinner. He had intended to go back to his apartment after the drink, and study, and order in some Chinese food. But now he finds himself saying that he is thinking of getting something to eat, did she want to join him?”A classic, tried-and-true, nearly can’t-fail first date: meet at a bar you know and like. You’re maybe not sure if you want to commit to spending the time it takes (and the money, perhaps) on a full meal with someone. Notably, Gogol allows Moushumi to split the bar tab with him but insists on picking up dinner, making an ambiguous meeting between old family friends definitely a date.
--Marshal Zeringue
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