(Life tip for the ladies: If you meet a guy from UVA, he'll be really impressed if you know that his team is playing really good basketball this year).
Festivals can make pretty good dates. Usually admission is either free or really cheap, and there's good food, tasty beverages, and live music. To me, festivals also serve as a great opportunity to casually introduce a guy to your friends and/or to meet his friends. There's really no pressure to behave a certain way at any given festival. Drink beer or don't. Eat food or don't. Sit somewhere and people watch, or wander around and look at the various merchants who have set up shop. Actively listen to the band, or don't. The carefree setting removes a lot of pressure and expectations from a typical meet-and-greet type of situation.
A couple of years ago, I dated a guy for several months who had a lot of great qualities. We'll call him Will. I was hoping things would progress with Will, but every time I tried to invite him to go somewhere with me and my friends, he refused. Because he was looking for a new job at the time, I hoped that his refusal was related to a desire to save money. Then, one absolutely beautiful Sunday afternoon, I was going to a (free) festival with my friends. I texted Will to see if he wanted to meet up with us, and he told me he was already going with his friends. (Strike 1: Where's my invite, dude?) So we left things at "OK, I'll see you down there."
I got to the festival with several of my girlfriends and tried to text Will to see if he was there. I never got a response to my text, which was Strike 2. I should add that I had already met and hung out with the friends Will was with, which was all the more reason that his avoiding me made no sense.
After a while, my group of friends literally, physically ran into Will and his friends. This was the first time Will had had contact with any of the friends I constantly talked to him about. I was hoping he would jump on the opportunity to get to know people who were important to me, but instead, he barely said hello and then wandered away to get another beer. No attempt to chat with my girls, no mingling of the groups who were doing the exact same thing, nothing. His disinterest was so blatant that I had to (embarrassingly) explain to my friends that they had just seen the guy I'd been dating for months. As you might imagine, that was Strike 3, and I was not available the next several times Will tried to ask me out. As the Spice Girls said,
Whether you choose to enjoy Richmond's festival season with your friends, your love interest, or a combination of the two, it's a great opportunity to have a fabulous time in our beautiful city. Here's to hoping that your beaus handle social introductions better than Will did!
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