Choose one and be immediately teleported to that time.
Wooing
1880s: Boy walks to girl’s house, carrying bouquet of wildflowers. Boy and girl sit in the parlor across from her parents. She serves him tea and little cakes and plays the piano for him. Boy writes verses for girl. Girl sneaks out window at night. Boy and girl kiss and hold hands under the moonlight.
Dating
1920s: Girls from boarding house go to dance hall for jitterbug contest. Girl is introduced to boy by her female friend (with whom she shares a cot and, truth be told, some intimacies, at the boarding house). After a few weeks of dating, boy and girl do some heavy petting, but nothing beyond that because they believe that if they do, they will go to hell.
1950s: Boy picks up girl in his Chevy Bel Air and takes her to the soda parlor, then to a roller rink. They get hot and heavy on “lover’s lane,” and, a few weeks later, at a “drive-in movie” and, the next night, in the back row of an A&W rootbeer and burger joint with car hops. All this doing it in cars is pretty uncomfortable.
1960s: Girl meets boy at Happening. They go back to somebody’s “pad” and drop acid and “make it” with each other and maybe a few others. The next day, he’s gone. She never sees him again, but that’s OK because she’s “shacking up” with another guy and his “old lady” (age: 19) whom she happened to meet there.
1980s: Boy nervously asks girl out. They go to dinner and a movie at the Multiplex, and boy pays. Boy agrees to start taking the girl to the girl’s parents’ church on Sundays so they can stop at his apartment and do it on the way home after the services.
Hooking Up
2018: Boy and girl, or boy and boy, or girl and girl finally get a match on one of their apps, and they exchange a few texts beginning with “Hey.” Then they meet up for Netflix and totally awkward sex, which could be worse because at least they will never see each other again.
Art: GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1830519
Copyright 2018. Robert D. Shepherd. All rights reserved.
Bob Shepherd | Praxis 