During the four years I’ve lived in Port City, I’ve made a number of female friends, most of them via an informal dog play group that sprang up on the beach. A few times a week I’ll meet them for a dog walk or video night, and once or twice a month we’ll plan dinner or a movie together. Some of us are married with children, and our husbands are usually able to cover for us on girls’ night out, because none of them ever has plans for a corresponding boys’ night. In fact, it seems that none of our husbands has made a new friend since he got married.

This might be because they’re geeks who don’t play or watch sports and thus don’t have the usual social outlets that would draw heterosexual men together. Or it may be that they rely on their wives to manage their social calendars and, since it never occurs to us to arrange a play date for our husbands, they go without. So imagine our surprise when three husbands got together, without any wifely prompting, and arranged to see the new Star Wars movie together tonight.

They’re going on a man-date!

We — their wives — are stunned. We’re proud of them for taking the initiative, nervous for them as they confront a new social situation, and hopeful that they’ll like each other. We wonder about the social etiquette involved in a man-date. Will all three of them drive? At the movies, will they sit next to one another or leave a seat between them? Afterwards, if they go out for dinner, who pays?

Then, will there be a second man-date? Are there “rules” for man-dating that govern how much time should pass before one party calls the other, and how much notice they should give each other for dates?

They grow up so fast.