Date Chaperone

[Lady Stein]

BG: My coworker/friend (let's call her Nancy) is part of religious denomination that requires women to have a chaperone when they go out on a date.  The gender of the chaperone does not matter.  Nancy moved to my city about 6 months ago and does not have relatives nearby.  Also, members of her church are unavailable to chaperone her date (don't know the reasons).  So, Nancy asked me to be her chaperone and offered to pay for my meal.  Since no one else was available, I agreed to go because she was panicking about cancelling the date.  It's the first one.  However, I have no idea what a date chaperone is supposed to do.

Do I sit there quietly or engage Nancy and her date in conversation?  Is there anything I'm specifically supposed to do as a chaperone besides making sure the date does not get to scrabble level or something like that?  Any advice or experiences would be appreciated. 

[Amara]

Could you look it up online using her religion as part of the search terms like "chaperone duties [religion name]?

[Sharnita]

I would see if there is any way you can ask a clergy member or somebody who has been a chaperone before.  I would guess that you are there to keep it far below scrabble level. I don't know if you could read while they converse or if that would be rude. 

[Dragonflymom]

I think the best way to handle this would be to ask your friend what is expected, and what the usual chaperone duties are, and if you should bring a book/craft project or something.

[lady_disdain]

I would ask Nancy what she expects, specially how much social interaction.

[camlan]

I think the best way to handle this would be to ask your friend what is expected, and what the usual chaperone duties are, and if you should bring a book/craft project or something.

This.

I really doubt you will be there to keep things below scrabble level--if both Nancy and her date follow the rules of their religion, they probably won't even try to go there.

What you will be there for is to prevent any doubt about what went on during the date--more an observer who can verify that nothing untoward took place, instead of someone who has to prevent things from happening.

[NyaChan]

I think the best way to handle this would be to ask your friend what is expected, and what the usual chaperone duties are, and if you should bring a book/craft project or something.

This.

I really doubt you will be there to keep things below scrabble level--if both Nancy and her date follow the rules of their religion, they probably won't even try to go there.

What you will be there for is to prevent any doubt about what went on during the date--more an observer who can verify that nothing untoward took place, instead of someone who has to prevent things from happening.

Yup, you are there for appearances - it is like leaving the office door open when a prof. is meeting with a student.  Odds are there is nothing happening, but an open door removes all doubt.

[gramma dishes]

I would ask Nancy what she expects, specially how much social interaction.

This. 

But I have to ask.  Does the suitor know that their date is going to include the presence of a chaperone?   

[Sharnita]

I could be wrong but I would guess that if the religion requires dating with a chaperone they likely expect people to date within the religion, so I would think he'd be aware.

[Mikayla]

I agree that Nancy is the best source of info, but the other question raised is how long the two of them require chaperoning.   The OP says the chaperone is needed on "a date", not "first date".  Since no one else seems to be available, I'd probably want that clarified pretty quickly.

[LifeOnPluto]

Another vote for wanting to know my expected duties, before agreeing to be a chaperone. I mean, do I tap them on the shoulder if they have a snog, or what? etc.

[nuit93]

I did this a few times when my sister was dating her first boyfriend.  She was 16 and her in church youth group, he was 18 and had just 'aged' out of it (and was considered a youth 'leader) so their church wouldn't allow them to date unsupervised.  Since our mom didn't want to do it (she didn't belong to the same church and thought the rule was stupid) it fell on my 19 year old shoulders (I also thought the rule was stupid).

It mostly involved going with them on outings, since her b/f was near my age and sociable we ended up chatting sometimes but mostly I was just there for appearances' sake.  To any observer we were just three young adults hanging out.  Eventually I stopped doing it because I wasn't going to change already-made plans to play chaperone. 

[Lynn2000]

Interesting. I agree with others that Nancy is the best person to ask about her expectations. I would want to know the following:
--How much am I supposed to interact with Nancy and her date? Is this "dinner for three" or me sitting there with a book, eating quietly while they talk?
--If they hit it off and want to have more dates, am I expected to be available to attend all of them? Or, was it just a freak occurrence that no one from their church was available, combined with Nancy being fairly new in town, so it's likely to be a one-time thing?

Since I've not encountered this particular religion before, I'm imagining that a friend asked me to participate in a "group outing" with her and a guy she likes, because she's shy/nervous about having a one-on-one date with him right away. If the outing was something I was interested in, I would be perfectly fine doing this once or twice. After that I think it would become awkward and dull for me, especially if--being single myself--it was always just the three of us in the group, and I felt pressured to attend because otherwise they couldn't see each other. I don't think that's a good position to put a friend in. (Not necessarily what's happening in the OP, I'm just trying to relate it to something I can imagine better.)