I just got back from a conference with Will Wilkinson where he mentioned that the New York Times had canonized the “man date”:

Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not…

“Sideways,” the Oscar-winning film about two buddies touring the central California wine country on the eve of the wedding of one of them, is one long and boozy man date.

Even today, it seems that the main obstacle to massive man dating is the fear of being misperceived as gay – by anyone from your waiter to your man date himself:

The concern about being perceived as gay is one of the major complications of socializing one on one, many straight men acknowledge. That is what Mr. Speiser… recalled about another man date he set up at a highly praised Italian restaurant in a strip mall in Charlottesville. It seemed a comfortable choice to meet his roommate, Thomas Kim, a lawyer, but no sooner had they walked in than they were confronted by cello music, amber lights, white tablecloths and a wine list.

The two exchanged a look. “It was funny,” Mr. Speiser said. “We just knew we couldn’t do it.” Within minutes they were eating fried chicken at a “down and dirty” place down the road.

Too bad the NYT didn’t interview Rick Harbaugh for this story; I’m not sure which of his clever signaling models applies, but the parallels are uncanny.