Committing to Tickets

by Nicholas Allen — September 22, 2007

One of the things I love most about New York is the way it comes back to life in the fall. The weather is usually crisp and clear, and the theaters and event planners dust off the summer sand and unfurl a dizzying array of things to do and see. There are museum exhibits, new plays, film festivals, industry parties--all the things that make this city great.

Getting into many of these shows and events requires some serious advance planning. I hold subscriptions at a number of theaters, for example, and to get good seats you have to buy the tickets months in advance. I'm already scooping up reservations for shows I can't wait to see as far out as December or even January.

With subscriptions, you usually have a number of possibilities--you're not committed to seeing any one particular play that a theater may be showing, but you get "first dibs" on a variety of shows and can pick the ones you think you'll be most interested in. It's the kind of decision-making that I'd love to include Patricia in. Which shows would she like to see? Which actors coming to the New York stage this year would it be most exciting for her to watch live and in person?

But I hesitate whenever I think of asking her. I mean, it's only September right now. It's one thing to buy tickets to go see a play on her birthday that's only two weeks away. But will it seem overly precipitous if I were to suggest the two of us going to see something together on December 1st? That's practically further away than the two of us have been together at this point. But not asking seems to imply that I have doubts as to whether or not we'll be together that long--which, of course I do. As great as things are right now, who's to say how we'll feel about each other in three or four months? I have a vision of myself, sometimes, sitting in some theater by myself, attending a play that I bought tickets for because Patricia really wanted to see it--only Patricia isn't there. Kind of depressing, isn't it?

The counter argument is that, at the end of the day, buying theater tickets doesn't represent the kind of commitment that, say, buying real estate does. I mean, the worst-case scenario is that I give the tickets away when the time comes. I'm sensing at this point that Patricia isn't the kind of girl who will scare off if I should ask her now whether she has plans on a particular night in November. So maybe it's worth at least finding out...

Nicholas Allen is a writer and columnist based in Manhattan. To read all of his blogs, click here.