E-Mail This Article to a Friend Today’s date Courting used to be a much more enjoyable affair than the version I had to endure BY ALAN OLIFSON

A FEW WEEKS ago a woman slipped me her phone number. This is not the kind of thing that normally happens to me, though I must say it is not unprecedented. (I’m a comedian, and you’d be surprised how many women are wooed by a well-placed dick joke and a two-drink minimum.) I should mention that I haven’t been on a date in almost three years, mostly because that’s how long I’ve been with my girlfriend. But I still remember my dating days — much in the same way I imagine Vietnam vets remember Khe Sanh. So, while flattering, having the number slipped into my hand was also flashback-inducing.

To put it mildly, I never really took to dating as an activity. The mechanics of the whole process just left me feeling cold, alone, and confused. And usually out 60 bucks.

From what I’ve pieced together from Grease, Happy Days, and stories my dad has told me, dating used to be a much more enjoyable affair than the early-’90s version I had to endure. Back in the ’50s there were little black books and drive-in movies and milk shakes. People dated with a kind of repressed, reckless abandon — almost decadent and innocent at the same time. Then came the ’60s and ’70s and free love and swinging-singles bars. In those days, you could waltz into the Regal Beagle with your shirt unbuttoned down to your belt buckle, hair all over your chest, coke all over your nose, and say things like, "Your father is a thief ... he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes." And you could get laid.

Then I was ready to date — and there was AIDS. Mine was the first generation to grow up dating under the grim specter of death. This must have affected my outlook.

By the time I was out of college and had my own apartment and some disposable income, it seemed more people died from casual sex than in plane crashes. The closest I got to an orgy was Hands Across America.

But it wasn’t only the death of promiscuity that killed dating for me. I also blame Starbucks. As the physical risks of casual encounters rose, Starbucks exploded onto the dating scene like an inhibitions grenade. All of a sudden, meeting for cocktails was out, and everyone wanted to meet for coffee. Great, because when I’m picking someone up, I really want them to be more alert. Come on, where’s the excitement in coffee? I had built a whole dating strategy around the simple fact that alcohol clouds judgment. No one ever drops their cover and reveals exciting secrets about themselves over Frappuccinos. Two strangers don’t decide to catch the next plane to Vegas over a few ice-blended mochas. After 12 espresso shots, you don’t ever wake up and wonder, "Where the fuck are my pants?"

But as my own interest in dating faded, many of my friends grabbed the bull by the horns. Something just clicked in them, and they decided it was time to get serious and find a woman they could marry. They were staying up late at night doing math: "If I meet someone this week, we can date for a year before we’re engaged, then at least another year before we’re actually married, six months of which we live together, then two years of marriage before we have kids, then ... carry the three ... phew, I can still breed before 30 — if we can catch this eight-o’clock movie. Let’s go!" They weren’t dating, they were hunting. If they could’ve, they would have just walked into a bar with a club: "Her. She will be my wife."

I wasn’t thinking that far down the road. At 26, a long-term relationship for me meant breakfast in the morning. Some guys had checklists: Jewish, non-smoker, wants kids, doesn’t slurp her soup. I was just looking for poor judgment.

And poor judgment I got.

Though few and far between, my "official" dates usually went horribly wrong. In fact, many were less like dates and more like a series of warning signs interrupted by the occasional dinner roll. The following is what happened when I went out with the last woman who slipped me her number after a comedy show. It’s a pretty representative sample.

I picked her up at her apartment, which smelled like cats — the smell of crazy. She invited me in and immediately and manically offered me a joint. Most hosts would go for water in that situation, but not her. After looking around at the tapestry-, afghan-, and throw-pillow-filled apartment, I decided I wanted my wits about me for the evening and declined the joint. So she finished it herself and then offered to read my tarot cards. Still no water. Now, mind you, she wasn’t a professional psychic, but she felt she had the gift. As she read my cards — and continued not offering me water — she explained how she didn’t really believe in therapy but had done a lot of work on herself. This may have been true, though she had clearly allowed one doctor a pretty good go at her, given the collagen lips and cheek implants. After an hourlong and heart-stoppingly inaccurate tarot-card session, we finally went to dinner, at which point I actually plied myself with alcohol. Then, before the meal came, she confessed that she’d been really nervous before I’d arrived and so had done a little coke to calm her nerves. In the poor-judgment category, this girl was a winner (though she lost points for her poor grasp of the effects of recreational drugs).

So, when the phone number hit my hand a few weeks ago, this was the kind of evening that flashed through my mind. In the same situation, other men may have seen a potential night of hot, steamy sex against the door of a public bathroom; I saw a potential night of being denied water by a manic, tarot-card-reading coke fiend. Throwing the number away was easy. And then I went home and picked up my girlfriend — my sweet, normal, cat-hating girlfriend — and we headed over to Starbucks.

Angry single women with tarot cards and cats can find Alan Olifson at www.olifson.com