The Ironwood Collection of Alpha Moves (14 page)

The spot I selected was a long-abandoned horse pasture, still mostly fenced in, well behind the old stable.  It was at the far end of the pasture, which had been long-trodden and overgrown for years, and was now covered with moss.  It was quite meadowy.  Overhanging cedar trees provided both a screen for seclusion and a place to hang stuff -- and hang stuff I did.

This was the Age Before LEDs, so instead I used several hurricane lamps and candles, distributed around the blanket I pre-positioned.  I used the space behind a largish rock for a staging area, dragging a cooler and a boom box there and setting up both.  I borrowed a few wind chimes from my mother's back porch and hid them in the trees for effect. 

I set up an unobtrusive cone of incense
far
back away from our picnic to keep from triggering her asthma.  In the cooler I added a selection of  three types of cheese, crackers, summer sausage, grapes, strawberries and sugar, wine glasses, cutting board, knife, corkscrew (OK, it wasn't screw-cap cheap wine, but close), a citronella candle, and napkins.  The boom-box was set up with a mix tape (!) of George Winston tunes, soft rock, and vocal Celtic music (which I didn't know at the time, but my future wife
absolutely loathed
).

The blanket was a wide, fluffy one spread out over a tarp.  I brought a few pillows along for comfort, and just in case of rain I pitched my pup-tent discreetly on the other side of the barn.  Then I threw another tarp over the blanket and made sure that the path from the parking area to the pasture was clear of twigs, branches, and garden gnomes.

EXECUTION

That evening, I knew the future Mrs. I was working until at least
9:30
(restaurant job), and since her car was broken down, I picked her up from work.  We had some small talk, smoked a cigarette, and were headed home just like a normal night . . . when I took a strange turn off of the road.

"Uh, where are we going?" she asked, a little nervously.

"This way," I assured her, as we crept down the dirt road.  She bit her lip and then suddenly started looking all over the back seat of my gallant college
POS
, an
AMC
Pacer.  The future Mrs. Ironwood had decided to date me, anyway
, even though the Babe Magnet switch was broken
.

"What?  What are you looking for?" I asked, confused.

"An axe, duct tape, chainsaw, garbage bags, that sort of thing," she said, cheerfully as she turned back around.

"Oh, relax," I soothed.  "If I was that kind of dude, I would have done that months ago and moved on already.  Those guys are
poseurs
.  I'm not that afraid of commitment.  Sorry, but you're in for years of torment ahead of you," I joked.  "Besides, you keep that kind of shit in the
trunk
."

"You don't
have
a trunk," she pointed out. 
An
AMC
Pacer is a hatchback resembling a fish bowl on wheels – not exactly “sex positive”. 
"So where the hell are we going?" she demanded, her nostrils flaring prettily.

"On a date," I said, even more mysteriously.  "Fairy land, maybe.  Relax, enjoy the evening.  It's a full moon," I pointed out.

She grunted an agreement, but still looked worried.  But excited.  I finally stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and then asked her to wait a few moments.  She wasn't thrilled with that, out in the woods, but I told her she could lock the door and leave the lights on until I returned, if that made her feel better, so she agreed.

I ran down to the meadow and took the tarp off the blanket, lit the candles and lamps, and turned the music on softly before returning to the car.  I was only gone maybe two minutes.

"What now?" she asked, through a barely-slitted window.  The door was still locked.

"Now, we go on our date," I said, offering her my hand.  "Trust me."

We were still new in the relationship, so I can understand her hesitation.  But she also knew I had gone to a lot of trouble, and I probably really wasn't a serial killer because those guys are always loner neat-freaks and I was a
very
social slob.  So she got out of the car and reluctantly followed me.

I'd lit the first candle in the path just out of sight of the car, so when we turned the corner she saw it.  Her eyes lit up a little.  Seven more tealight candles later, and she was staring at the picnic I'd laid out, wonder in her eyes.

"You did all this . . .
for me?"

"My first date prospect fell through," I joked.  "And I figured you'd be my next easiest choice, emphasis on 'easy'," I quipped.  "
Of course
I did it for you.  Who else do I want to seduce by moonlight?"

"I'm sure you have a list," she mused, while looking around at all of the candles, augmented by the season's first fireflies.  "Ian, it's beautiful!"

We sat down, ate the picnic, had a lovely evening to soft music and candlelight, and even managed to slow dance a little under the stars and the bright, full moon.  Then we proceeded to the sweaty bits several times before the bugs finally overcame the inherent romance of the moment and forced a late retreat.

It's been nearly 20 years since I did that, but whenever Mrs. Ironwood discusses "the perfect date" with my nieces and daughter, she brings that one up without fail as one of her top five. 

I've repeated it several times since -- always an unexpected surprise, always well-planned and executed, with contingencies for everything from wild animals, sudden showers or wandering law enforcement officials well-made.  She says it was one of the most Alpha dates she'd ever been on, since she had no idea it was going to happen and no input into what we did.  As such, it was a very,
very
interesting, hopelessly romantic surprise that helped cement in her head the idea that she wanted to have my babies.

So consider trying this one out.  It's cheap, it's easy (and we're dudes . . . we LOVE "cheap and easy"), it's impressive, it demonstrates foresight and sensitivity as well as your ability to plan and execute a simple date that doesn't involve tipping or being anywhere at a particular time.  Consider doubling the picnic with a telescope to look at the moon, or schedule it during a meteor shower where you spend the evening making wishes on falling stars.

It doesn't have to be
midnight
, but the next time you're trapped watching Dancing With The Stars with your wife before she yawns and goes to bed, remember that you could be dancing under the stars -- and getting some nookie
au natural
-- instead.

Alpha Move: Hit The Road, Jack!

There comes a point in every man’s relationship with his woman where the comfortable familiarity you feel waking up next to the same face every day slowly but inevitably becomes a kind of
ennui
that can lead to all sorts of snappish behavior.  That seems counterintuitive: you’d think that the more time you spend with your lovely lady, the more time you would want to spend with her.  But somewhere along the way things just get . . . routine.  And if you don’t take care, you can find this familiarity breeding contempt or worse, a plethora of Shit Tests.

I’ve been over this particular bump in the relationship road more than once, but it took years for me to realize its origin and nature before I could formulate an effective treatment. 

My first few years with Mrs. Ironwood were the usual hazy cloud of love, infatuation, and novelty sex, so I was appropriately distracted from the issue of relationship complacency.  But about Year Three, after most of a long hot summer cohabitating, going to summer classes, and working food service jobs, we started getting into a long, petty, nasty little rut where we’d seek to out-submit each other for the Blue Pill prize of boredom.

Things got hairy enough to consider relationship counseling – but we were young and broke and uninsured, so we settled for argument and introspection instead.  Cheaper. 

Finally, the proto-Mrs. Ironwood cornered me after a particularly
vicious
and pointless spat, ostensibly to continue it, when she abruptly changed tactics and actually asked me what was wrong.  I thought for the barest of seconds.

“I need to miss you more, I guess,” was all I could sheepishly say.

That took Mrs. I by surprise, but she took it at face value, too.  Within a few days I had found myself signed on to a road trip with a bunch of dudes to another state for the purpose of manly indulgence in masculine things like hitting people with sticks, drinking homebrewed mead and swearing forsoothly.  It wasn’t more than a long weekend, but when I returned I attacked the future Mrs. Ironwood with renewed vigor and lustfulness.  Indeed,
I just needed to miss her more.
  And
vice versa.

There’s an old bluegrass tune I enjoy called
“How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?”
and I like it because it is instructive.  As much as we love the dear object of affection, the woman who birthed your children and pledged her undying love to you before the gods and her kin, the woman who would happily take a bullet or cut a bitch on your behalf, that woman whose very name makes your heart beat faster is also the one who can drive you
fucking batshit insane
if you don’t get out of her sphere of influence and remember where your testicles are every now and then.

As we've lost our grasp on traditional masculinity, thanks to the overthrow of the Patriarchy, we've also lost some of the noble traditions that kept our revered paternal ancestors from murdering or otherwise ending their relationships with our revered maternal ancestors.  It is a lost truth that every adult man needs to renew the well of his masculinity in the company of other men, preferably in the completion of some quest, contest, or great feat of arms or skill.  In other words, Grandad knew that sometimes the best way to deal with Grandma was to get the hell out of Dodge for a few days, kick back with the guys, and bask in the utter lack of feminine presence.

That didn’t mean (necessarily) that Grandad was getting some homoerotic action on the DL on his hunting trips, it just meant that a straight testosterone injection in the form of male fellowship in the completion of a common goal is oft the best treatment for your wife’s face becoming too familiar to you.

In ancient times, it was chthonic monsters or evil witches or tyrannical kings that needed slaying.  In the Middle Ages, dragons, grails, crusades and general errantry were preferred.  In our grandsires’ day it was Theodore Roosevelt-style hunting and fishing trips in the rugged wilderness that haunted the masculine imagination.  But in our present day and age, this important masculine ritual is typically fulfilled via the expedient of the great American masculine tradition:

The Road Trip.

That’s right.  Pile in the car with two or more male buddies (strangers can work . . .
if you dare
. . .), fill up the tank, load up on beef jerky and diet soda, and drive to some destination of note for a trip of no less than four days’ duration.  Yes, four days – any less time and you won’t be gone long enough for her to miss you.  And that’s part of the point, for her to live a couple of days without you up her butt and to the left.