DATING/ LOVE: TIPS THAT WILL SAVE YOU

Dating has made me something of a cynic. Call it what you will – courting, dating, whatever – any non-platonic relationship with a female will most likely end in disaster. In fact, dating is a lot like playing darts with a blindfold on in a room full of crazed wombats. That is to say, it’s difficult to get right.

So, with my extensive knowledge in this field, let me give you some tips that will save you some time, money, and pain in your future relationships. These are valuable tips, but I’ve decided to be a Public Servant and not make you pay for them. That’s right. It’s all because I care.

1. There are three sorts of girls in the world, men. The ones that don’t care about you, the ones that hate you, and the ones that will hate you ex post relationship. Getting group one to care is no easy task. Don’t bother. Getting group two to care, believe it or not, is easy: they already hate you. Hate is pretty close to love, except that hate involves less intimacy and more bricks in purses. Group three is a write-off. Don’t bother. I know you want to, but don’t. Unless you suddenly become another person and that person’s name is Johnny Depp, they don’t want you.

2. If you’re so fortunate as to find a girl who cares and doesn’t hate you already, good going. You’re past the easy part. I’m going to assume here that you’re not a gigantic ass and that you’ll ask the girl out and not wait around for both your parents to arrange the deal, or for a giant tsunami to miraculously bring you together a la Hollywood. Here’s the catch: dating is an expensive, time-consuming hassle. So you need to know where this is all going. You need an objective. A purpose. Do you want to get married? That’s good. Go ahead and do that, see if I care. There’s a whole bunch of good reasons to date a girl. However, if one of those objectives is to “have a whole lot of sweaty sex”, go get yourself chemically castrated and have a nice day.

3. Once you’ve got a goal in mind, you’ve won half the battle of half the war of the rest of your life. Next comes dating in general. Now, let me let you in on a secret: every time you do something fancy for a girl, you’ve set a mark. And every time post-mark you do something fancy, it needs to hit or exceed that mark – which is bad news, considering that you probably suck at doing romantic thing for your girl. So, start small. Don’t be flashy from the get-go. Big things are nice memories, but the small things are what flesh everything out and really matter. Here’s an example: my first girlfriend just got married. So did my third. My second girlfriend is about as close to married as a llama is to a baseball bat, but this is all beside the point. I don’t have a single thing that reminds me of this first girlfriend. You know why that is? Because the biggest thing she ever gave me was this teddy bear I nearly forgot about after I doused it in gasoline and threw it out the window while driving down the 401. Okay, maybe I just burned it in the backyard. You want to leave an impression that lasts longer than it takes for a stuffed animal to burn. This leads to the next point.

4. Girls will say things they do not mean, and you must regard them as such. Girls will say things like “I don’t really care about flowers,” and “Valentines day isn’t a big deal for me.” You’ve probably heard it before. What these statements actually mean is “I don’t expect you to do anything on Valentines Day, like bringing me flowers.” Here’s the catch – unless a girl was beaten by a florist on Valentines Day when she was thirteen, she cares. So go small – don’t buy flowers on Valentines Day, because that’s just stupid. Do something else, something memorable. And if you can’t come up with any ideas, give me a call at my 1-900 number.

5. Be spontaneous. Really. Those flowers you see me talking about? Don’t buy them in obvious numbers on obvious days. Do it out of the blue. Get her one red rose. On a Friday, in the middle of winter for no reason whatsoever. You know what that says? It says, “Hey, I was thinking about you the other day. Not only was I thinking about you, but I care enough about you to express that through this gift.” You think that twelve roses says it better? Wrong. Look at it this way: she likes the rose you gave her, and it’s beautiful because of its simplicity. You think you get twelve times the appreciation when you have twelve times the roses? No. A dozen is a fundamentally unsound financial decision. Don’t do it, unless you want to set that bar higher. Remember the bar. Always, always, always remember the bar. Women have memories like you wouldn’t believe.

6. Be prepared for anything at any time. Relationships, and females in particular, are like a study in quantum mechanics. Things happen, and you can’re always be sure why, and you certainly can’t predict when. Your job is to not start fires, and to put them out when they do. It’s called taking charge. You’re not a hundred pound Dungeons and Dragons-playing wuss. But here’s the tricky part. Sometimes you just can’t fix things. You need to know when to let go. Let things run their course. If this doesn’t seem obvious to you, let me explain.

7. Women do not speak your language. They say things that don’t make sense. You, my friend, are a cryptographer. You’re going to break that code, because that’s how much you care. Sometimes, women say things they don’t mean. Sometimes they don’t say the things that they should. Sometimes they just want you to shut your pie-hole and turn on your ears. Especially when they’re frustrated with something – they suddenly become this giant fountain of speech that you can. not. stop. So don’t try. This is when you don’t try to fix things. You sit, you stand, you lie down, whatever – but you listen. Got that? Good.

8. Her parents are probably important to her. They probably hate you. Try to get along, would you? Even if that means golf, or household chores, or complimenting the absolutely awful design of the new addition to the house. Unless your girl is completely self-sufficient and approximately sixty, you’re just going to darn well have to do this.

9. It’s probably all a waste of time. After you’ve done everything right and gone to extreme lengths and been the most accepting, gentlemanly, respectful person ever, it’s probably going to blow up in your face and leave you back at square one. But this is a good thing, my cynical friend. For reasons that I can’t reveal due to national security concerns. But trust me, you’ll become a better person after it’s said and done. And if you don’t care about becoming a better person, well, you don’t deserve a girlfriend anyways, so go move to Nebraska and pan for gold or something.


Okay, so you followed the first post in this series pretty well, and you think you’re ready to do things right this time. Well, fellows, good luck with that. Here’s the cold and hard facts: you suck, and you always will. You have about ten thousand flaws, approximately a hundred of which are completely obvious to everyone but you. Trust me, your woman knows this before you know she knows it, which is when she tells you she knows it in a manner known as a “fight”, or if you’re the diplomatic sort, a “discussion”.

So you’re probably wondering, with all these flaws to get around, where are you ever going to find a girl that’s going to put up with all the crap? That’s the tricky part, but that’s why you’re listening to me and not watching Friends reruns. An aside: if you’re taking any cues from television about relationships and the show you’re watching isn’t “Homicide: Life on the Streets”, you’re about to have a shock along the lines of sticking your tongue in a toaster. So don’t do that, okay? Just trust me. The people that write TV shows have either been separated from reality for so long they wouldn’t understand it if it hit them with a skillet, or understand it perfectly and have some sadistic desire that you never do.

So you’re girl hunting. And you want to know what to look for, and how to look. I’m going to break this down into two sections. If, at this point, you’re really confused about what’s going on here, welcome to Hotel Bachelor and enjoy your long, long stay. Okay, for those of you still with me:

1. So you’re looking. The most important thing – and never underestimate this one – you can do while looking is look like you’re not looking. If women smell desperation, they run, except the ones equally desperate. And goodness knows you don’t want a desperate woman. Some of those would marry a dishrag if there was a diamond ring involved somewhere. The easiest way to not look desperate is pretty simple. Just don’t be desperate. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen because you’re going to make it happen. You’re just not going to make it happen right away, because girls aren’t microwave dinners or pizzas. They don’t don’t get delivered to your door. In fact, they’re more like free-range quail. I won’t explain that analogy.

2. Be comfortable with yourself, but not too comfortable. That is to say, you like yourself, but you don’t have a crush on your mirror. Most girls like easygoing guys with an edge of danger and a certain hidden intensity to them, except for the girls that like dangerously intense guys that can be easygoing, or intense guys that are easygoing in a dangerous sort of way. You. Cannot. Be. Boring. Because:

3. Guys are a dime a dozen. Think you’re special? Wrong. You’re a New York taxi: the same colour as every other taxi out there. It’s the inside of the taxi that makes the deal work, not the fact that you’re a blue or red taxi. In fact, being a blue or red taxi makes a girl suspicious that maybe you’re not really a taxi after all, and reluctant to find out whether or not they’re right. So what do you do? Be different, but not too different. If “you” is punk rock, mohawks, and piercings, make sure that your peer group is also punk rock, mohawks, and piercings. Every once in a blue moon, this punk man will meet and fall in love with a pink-bunny-slipper-wearing girl with a crush on Ricky Martin or whoever it is that graces the cover of Grabbing My Crotch Whilst Singing magazine, but you’re not looking for once in a blue moon. You’re looking for reality, and trust me, clothes make a little man, but those wonderful secret little things about you are what makes the girls drool. You’re like a brand name – think, marketing genus, what differentiates you from every other guy on the planet? Find something. Nurture it. Grow it. Even if you never actually get a girl, it’ll be worth it anyways.

4. Be mysterious. But don’t be a giant question mark. Share up to a point – and then stop. It’s like saying A New Episode At The Same Time Next Week honey! Play your cards pretty close to the chest. Don’t be that blubbering girl-boy that practically pees his pants in public to get noticed. Keep your best features locked away somewhere, and show the teaser trailer every once in a while in some non-obvious way. You don’t need to show a girl how wonderful and special you are by landing the Goodyear Blimp on her house with you suspended beneath it playing “Feels Like Home” on a grand piano. If there’s any interest at all, she’ll wait for the next shot.

5. You’re not a supermodel, and only seven girls out of a hundred expect you to be one. Face it, girls are interested in things like Chequebooks, Power, Faithfulness, and Strength. Don’t apply if you’re a wimp. Of course, this is a generalization. Some girls are interested in the fact that you really love your work and are content making nearly no money at all. Some girls just love the fact that you have what they would call a “beautiful mind”. Some girls just want a nice guy. But let me tell you something, gentlemen (oh, there’s another thing they like), talk to girls who have some sense in their heads, and you’ll find that some of the most wonderful guys in the world are pretty darn average looking. That’s most likely you, too. You’re moderately attractive, and that’s enough, thank you. Guys “grow” on girls as they get to know them – your personality and a hundred other things will actually make you look better or worse in their eyes, and I mean visually. Don’t try to understand it. Women’s minds are attached to their emotions. It’s a wierd thing, but it explains why so many pretty ugly guys get those gorgeous babes. And that’s the last time in my life I ever use the word “gorgeous babe”.

And wow, that was long. I’ll have to write that second part another time, because gee whiz, I’m feeling like ten pounds of crap in a five pound bag. I feel like crap’s crap. Like I’ve blown six sinuses out my nose, and I’m pretty sure I don’t have that many.