Couples Coupling

One thing that all hot-and-heavy, engaged, or married couples realize is how hard it is to find other couples with whom they can harmoniously socialize.

My wife and I most certainly fall into this category. We have some couple friends with whom we'll never do foursome activities. Either the guys and gals have to split up....or, more problematic, one spouse has ZERO interest in their same-sex counterpart. I mean who doesn't have a good friend that's dating or married to a buffoon?

Sure, a good deal of the inter-gender friction, might, possibly come from moi. Let's face it, some broads are hypersensitive Morons and they are scared to death of me; and scared to death of ending up *on the blog*.

BUT, there are also the dudes who, for some reason, can't conversate with my wife. They are stereotypical, total sports meatheads.

And, furthermore, we know at least one couple, that we otherwise adore, whom WE can't tolerate when THEY are together. Both he and she get all stiff in each other's presence - and it makes one wonder about the quality of their union.

So I got a hearty laugh out of this article my MIL(?) sent me today:

When Four Play The Dating Game

I was wrong about marriage. I thought that as long as I tied the knot—and made sure it stayed tied—I'd never have to date again.

Then I found myself out at a restaurant, smiling a little too broadly, watching my table manners and nervously trying to make conversation.

It was a date all right—a "couples date."

My husband and I were having dinner with an acquaintance and his wife who had just moved to town. We were hoping the evening would be the start of a friendship.

Little did we know that finding another couple we could stand to spend time with could seem twice as hard as finding each other in the first place.

"It's frustrating," says Ben Van Houten, a 40-year-old technology writer. "We are looking for chemistry—a couple to become life-long friends with us. But we have not been able to find it."

Since moving to Grand Rapids, Mich., three years ago, Mr. Van Houten and his wife have gone out with several of his old high-school buddies and their spouses, and tried to meet couples through work and their son's school.

They had one "date" where the woman was self-absorbed, another, Mr. Van Houten recalls, where the man was "a complete dud with no sense of humor," and a third that was ruined by politics. When Mr. Van Houten got up his nerve and asked a neighbor and his wife out to dinner, the man replied, "I don't like people."

For the past few weeks, the Van Houtens have been waiting nervously for a couple to reschedule a date they had postponed—and debating whether to call first. "With couples dating, you really have to put yourself out there," Mr. Van Houten says. "It's hard."

Sort of reads like a tongue-in-cheek parody, no?



My next order of business is to sign my wife and I up on Kupple.com!

Yeah, it's a genuine double-dating site for couples; check it out, enter your zip code, and search for any losers you might know!

After four years of courtship and six years of marriage I think Mrs. C-Nut and I have mastered the art of managing our *couple friends*.

Alas, there's a new wrinkle these days.

It's not enough anymore to find friends where the spouses can, once in a while, tolerate each other.

No, you have to cover that base AND their brat kids have to get along with your brats!