Three Day Rule

July 7, 2004

Ali and I had made tentative plans for Monday, so I called her Sunday night to see if she was still up for hanging out. She emailed me at about 4 a.m. "I just got home. I don't expect to be waking up early tomorrow, but I was thinking of going to see Before Sunset in the afternoon. Wanna go?"

I hadn't heard anything about the movie, so I looked it up online. Then I called her: "Hey Ali, it's Jamie. Yeah, I'd be up for a movie, but that one looks like a chick flick. Whatever, call me when you wake up." I was being somewhat facetious, since there are many so-called chick-flicks I like. I just didn’t expect this to be one of them.

When she called, she convinced me it wasn't just for chicks, and so we went. The movie was pretty good, actually, and when it was over, everyone seemed to be saying good things about it as they left the theater. Ali popped into the bathroom, and as I waited, I noticed a guy walking around asking people what they thought of the movie.

"Did you like it?" I overheard him ask a woman outside the toilet.

She nodded, yes.

"Ugh!" the guy replied, "Are we the only ones who hated it?"

By "we", he was referring to his boyfriend and the girl they were with. I hadn't noticed them before, but now they were wandering around as a group, asking everyone: "What did you think? Did you like it? How about you?"

When Ali came out of the bathroom, I told her what was going on. "See those guys over there?" I said, "They hated the movie, and they're asking everyone what they thought. I bet if we walk behind them, they'll ask us."

"C'mon," she said, and rushed ahead to get behind the three haters on the escalator.

Sure enough, as we rode up, the most vocal of the three turned to us and asked: "What did you guys think? Did you like it?"

"Yeah, actually," Ali told him, "I thought it was really good."

"Oh my god! You're kidding! We can't be the only people who hated it?"

"What didn't you like about it?" Ali asked.

"It was boooring ," they all said in unison.

"We just wanted them to fuck already,” said the first guy. “I mean, c'mon, Ethan, just fuck her, would you?"

At the top of the escalator, there was a group of people waiting to get in. They were all looking at a big poster for the movie we'd just seen. "Oh my god," the loud guy shrieked. "I hope they're not going to see it. We should warn them."

Ali and I stood outside in the bright sun, laughing for a minute, until we decided to head to the East Village to get ourselves some iced coffees. We wanted to sit outside, but the coffee shop was packed, and all the seats were taken. "We can get the coffees to-go," Ali suggested, "and sit in Tompkins Square Park and look at the weirdos."

As we sat on a bench, she got around to telling me what was on her mind. "So I finally broke the ice with my bass teacher."

She'd had a crush on her bass teacher since her very first lesson, and had been waiting for him to ask her out. She finally got sick of waiting. "I told him we should go out sometime."

"And?"

"He was really into it," she said. "We exchanged numbers and email addresses."

"Cool. So you're in."

"Well, no. Here's the thing. I emailed him on Saturday, and I never heard back."

"Ali!" I scolded her, "It's only Monday. Give him some time. Not everyone is an internet junky. He might not have even seen the message yet."

"Maybe."

"And besides, even if he has seen your email, you're not going to hear from him until Tuesday."

"Tuesday? Why?"

"You wrote him on Saturday," I explained, and then began counting off on my fingers, "Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. It's the three-day rule."

"Is that true? Is that really a rule?"

"Where have you been, Ali? c'mon, get with the program. A guy's not gonna call you for three days after initial contact."

"Fuck that. If that's true, then you know what? I'm not even interested. I'm not gonna start playing games."

"It's not a game. It's like, I don't know, a law of nature or something."

"Well, how about you? Is that what you do?"

Coffee slurped through the straw as I took a long sip. "No. I'm one of those dorks who'll call you the next fucking day.”

"Well then, see ?"

I popped the lid off my coffee's plastic cup and stirred the ice around with the straw. "Trust me," I said. "I'm the exception that proves the rule. It’s hit or miss if a girl’s going to appreciate getting contacted right away. Half the time, they think I’m too eager and run away. You can blame girls for the three-day rule.”

She continued to stress about it for the rest of the day. But then yesterday, I got an email from her: "I finally heard from the bass boy.”

"And?" I wrote back.

"And we have a date for this weekend. He's really into it."

"See? What did I say? Tuesday."

"Damn, you're good," she admitted.