Boomer Date Night: The Good, The Bad, The What’s This?

A Logger Burger Please

Spending time with someone you care about is one of the greatest relationship rewards.

There you are, you and your sweetheart, enjoying an evening out together.

Maybe it’s a regular thing and you’ve taken over, so this time you ask the other person what they’d like to do.

You figure it’s only one night. What could go wrong? The Bostonians.

If you remember Christopher Reeve as Superman, then you probably remember the other Superman. His name was George Reeves.

Both Reeve and Reeves knew they were more than Superman. They were actors with much more to give than leaping tall buildings and moving faster than a speeding bullet.

Only one of them was in The Bostonians. It would have been a better movie if he’d worn the cape, but 19th century Boston had other ideas.

You know a movie choice is wrong when one of the date night couple takes a knee in the lobby instead of getting creeped out watching Superman pretend he was a Mississippi lawyer named Basil Ransome.

It gets worse when they try to explain with, “I never walk out on movies. The closest was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But The Bostonians pushed me too far. And it wasn’t because I couldn’t get over Superman, er, Christopher Reeve, in a costume drama.”

Time goes by, movies come and go, and one night it happens again.

This time it’s date night at one of Portland’s fancy theaters, the one with viewing choices from 3-D to a living room setting.

You’re slightly late to the living room theater and the only seats are the ones closest to the screen. You can’t reach out and touch it from the couch, but if you stand up you’re in everyone’s way.

In this setting you order food and drinks during the previews. While you wait for dinner, the previews get more and more violent.

One of the loving couple decides they’ve made a bad choice and need to leave. The movie hasn’t even started yet and they’re bailing.

The other tries talking them down to no effect. The food is on the way. The movie hasn’t started. The car is parked three lots away and you took the stairs after dropping the other person off to get a good seat.

Nothing works. You find yourself alone in a dark room, your head resting on the same fabric strangers with lower hygiene standards have laid their’s because that’s the only way you can see the screen.

And you’re watching a movie the other person chose. It’s not The Bostonians, but the feeling is too familiar. Then the food arrives, enough for three but there’s only you.

Using the same technique you learned on airplanes, you balance a load of plates on swing-out tables and try not to spill everything.

Like a good practitioner of waste not/want not, you stuff it all down. By the time The Hunger Games: Catching Fire rolls out, you’re ready for a nap.

Afterwards, you meet your loved one in the lobby. They apologize for abandoning you on date night, then tell you about the movie they saw, the one you wanted to see.

It wasn’t The Bostonians.