Guide to Girls, Part Three
Dating - What Is It?
From time to time, we find ourselves asking what, exactly, is dating. No one really knows but some of my friends think dating is any one-on-one occasion where the express purpose is to get to know a member of the opposite sex better. They go on to tell me (because people naturally assume I have little experience in this realm) that the most conventional setting for a date includes conversing with something edible between the two of you.
I find this definition a little too convenient because guys often give themselves over to that dark alpha-male syndrome tucked away neatly between their subconscious and their inherited pneuma. I sometimes overhear guys bragging about "dating so-and-so" when the date in question had something to do with standing in line at Future Shop asking a girl what time it is while munching on a donut he brought from home.
I knew someone back in Montreal who would ask a random girl out to a casual lunch every week after rehearsal. This resulted in him beating his chest later, claiming that he has dated nearly every girl at school. When challenged of this publicly by these same girls, who vehemently denied ever dating him, he delivered a well thought-out harangue about the real definition of a date. He insisted that, out of three criteria, it was just the two of them, there was food involved, and it lasted longer than half an hour.
I like when people have ready criteria. But I find this whole situation problematic because I think dating should be of mutual understanding and not something forced upon you a few months later in passing. And it's never a good sign when you find yourself trying to convince the girl you were on a date using such quantitative things like "x number of minutes you remained on the same premises with me for."
Bad Dates - What Dating Is Like
I was actually going to title this little section "Good and Bad Dates", but let's just drop the pretense that I actually know what a good date is like. The way I see it, dating is like a party. Sometimes you and your friends will be hanging out in a big group and, spontaneously, it becomes a party. It's fun and everyone's having a good time. So you all think, "Hey, we should do this again! How about next week?" But next week is never the same. Everyone's been calling it a 'party' and the whole thing collapses under the pressure.
Dating is just like that. For me, once it's 'a date', it's doomed. I'll insult her deeply by saying all the wrong things, she'll stab me with her fork, I'll bleed all over the tablecloth, and I have to be picked up from the hospital. This, gentlemen, is an example of a bad date. (You'd think I made this stuff up.)
Somehow, telling your date-inquiring friends simply, "She stabbed me," is a pretty good indicator that the night had no ideal denouement.
I say dating is an act. You have to act like you're smooth, act like you're a good person, and act like the fork sticking out of your forearm doesn't hurt.
Technical Make-Up Of Dating - ACT
In some ways, though, my boastful friend had it right; for all functional purposes, these three things would constitute a date. I maintain that they don't necessarily mean you're dating, but, in order to have a date, most often you have these three technical things, which I've given random headings because I'm making this up as I go along highly qualified.
Attendance:
The first, and perhaps hardest, thing to achieve is her attendance: If she's not there, there's no date. Period. You can't date silverware, man. The best way to insure she's there is to take something of hers as collateral; steal her shoe and refuse to give it back until she's physically there with you.
Comestible:
Conventionally, dates and food are closely intertwined. It has everything to do with wanting to see how the other person eats; girls know that seeing a guy eat is seeing him at his potential worst. It's a little bit of a safety measure for them; a testing ground, even. If you can, try to avoid this. The amount of things that can go wrong are endless if you eat. If you can knock the C out, that's where it's AT.
Just last week, I was talking with one of my friends. She had been interested in this one guy she met at the gym for about a month. They had talked quite a bit while working out and she had been raving to me about his life goals, his great sense of humour, and his gentlemanly qualities (supposedly he would push open the ladies' locker room door for her -- which I find more convenient than gentlemanly). A few weeks later, he asked her out for dinner. And this is the cause for the quick demise of their relationship, summarized verbatim: "The guy chews like a cow."
That's it. No other explanation. Graminivorous creatures are simply not attractive.
Time:
My friend once had a date that lasted five minutes. This is honestly his claim to fame in our circle of friends, as his misfortune was bruited back and forth at a legendary rate. One summer, we were bored and even re-enacted the whole thing on video. Set to 70s funk, we decided to name the short movie "SHAFTed: Stood up more times than a bowling pin."
My friend's Five Minute Date was great, though, even in the name of humour and sneaking schadenfreude, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. He asked a girl out to dinner; they got there, ordered, and when the food came, she took two slow bites, got up, and left. To this day, we have no idea what happened. He said that he was nervous and wasn't saying much. Next thing you know, without a word, she's gone. Maybe she realized it wasn't going to work. Maybe she didn't want to lead him on by staying another nano-second. Maybe she didn't like what she ordered.
We were trying to figure out whether it was a) a date that lasted five minutes, or b) not a date at all. We never decided because it wasn't looking good either way.
My cell phone is problematic because it feels it can reserve the right to tell me when I'm done with a call. The arbitary way it handles my calls is starting to affect my friendships. For instance, I was having a frank discussion with one of my friends. We were discussing a sensitive issue, one of vital importance; namely, why Biggie was better than Tupac.
Right when my friend insistently stated, "Tupac's rhymes are better than Biggie's!" (which, for the record, is not only complete and utter nonsense founded on a shallow understanding of the technical aspects of rap, but it's an obvious indicator that the speaker went without having read Tupac's dreadful book of poetry, which combined jejune rhymes with content about as deep as a lunch tray) I lost reception on my phone. I looked at my phone and it flashed me an evil, cackling message: "Call was lost."
My friend thought that I had become so upset that I hung up on him. I called him back and the next fifteen minutes had us in awkward posturing coming from him thinking I was mad followed by my defensively disruptive denial. He would apologize to me for getting me so riled, I would deny that I had angrily ended the phone call, and, in turn, he would chide me for not admitting I had let my frustration get the best of me.
In the end, I assured him that, though I find his position illegally idiotic, our friendship was never in jeopardy. I realize this is a stupid story. But I think the point is that I wouldn't have typed any of this had it not been for my phone in the first place. So I blame this stupid story on my stupid phone.
It dawned on me, though, that almost all my problems with reception happen in my apartment. Sometimes when I have no reception at all, one sideways step gives me a jump-start of five bars. There are specific spots in my kitchen where I cannot stand while in conversation -- and these spots change hourly. It was then that I concocted a theory which I think is highly plausible: There is a big, fat guy who lives above my apartment. A man massive enough to inadvertently impede on my phone conversations with his Brobdingnagian girth. He walks across his kitchen to get a soda and I'm standing in my kitchen wondering why my friend's not responding and what exactly about my lunch plans was so offensive.
The other day, I was using an ear-piece with the cell phone belted to my waist. Bending down to pick something up, my stomach fan-folded over the phone. (I realize that this is embarrassing to admit but it's vital to this story.) When I stood up again, I realized I had snuffed out the entire signal.
I might just be that 'big, fat guy' to all the people who live on the floors below me. The truth hurts. I'll hand it to Tupac, though: I'd rather have him living upstairs.
The Mailbag
Following my second "Guide to Girls" post was a hot week for The Mailbag. My inbox could barely handle the fire. These are the messages in their entirety. I've responded to the first one because I couldn't resist.
Subject: You?
"YOU? writing a guide to girls? the best
that that you that can give them is a dsitant
observation."
I think the common strive regarding the usage of the word 'that' is to introduce a relative clause and not mindlessly repeating the word when it has no business being there in the first place. I think you could do away with the word altogether and your sentence, though still built on flimsy assumption and an aversion to the proper use of majuscules, would actually be comprehensible.
Subject: (none)
"How about you just say the girl looks nice? That's
pretty much all there is. Don't make me feel
selfconscious about tweezing my eyebrows. I hate
you."
Subject: Adrian
"Can you like shut up for the rest of your life."
Subject: AruGH
"SO UNTRUE WE DONT CARE ABOUT HAIR."
Subject: Idiot
"When did you start sucking so bad? I'll admit I
laughed after the dramatization part [in Part Two of
Guide to Girls] but that plucking the eyebrow
thing was a stretch. I barely even understand your
logic. Idiot."
Subject: DO NOT PSOT EVER AGAIN
"(no message)"
Guide To Girls, Part Two
Subject: Adrian
I like how your one piece of advice in your Guide to Girls is to run away. You'll get far with that.
Sylvia, Vermont
Sylvia, you're right and I see your point. I'll 'get far' only in terms of literal distance but, in fact, not any closer to being cool. With your thoughtful little email, I've decided the next installment on the Guide To Girls will be actually dealing with the issue.
The way I see it is that learning how to deal with girls is learning how to field questions about her hair. So the way to get a leg-up on that is to notice when something is different about their hair first. The problem is that, whenever a girl looks different, we frantically run through the list of Things That Could Have Happened: Maybe she got a haircut, is wearing more make-up, or she lost ten pounds. Either one. Maybe all three. We don't know. We'll notice something is different, but we just don't know what.
Here's where my advice kicks in. Go with the haircut.
You're in for some trouble if you ask her the other two. You just can't say, "Hey, you look good! Are you wearing more make-up?" If you do, either a) she is and you're basically saying she's ugly and the more layers of cosmetic powder separating her from reality the better, or b) she isn't, and you assume that she's looking good only on the account of more make-up, which makes her feel that she is naturally ugly. Anyway, it's a bad decision. If you ask if she lost ten pounds, either a) she has, and you're openly admitting that she looks better having lost ten pounds, making her feel ten pounds uglier the entire time prior, or b) she hasn't, but your immediate assumption that she looked better because she lost ten pounds means that you thought she had about ten pounds to lose in the first place.
If you're not convinced, consider my own blunder in tenth grade this dramatization:
Me: "Hey, you look great. Did you lose ten pounds??"
Girl: "No."
Me: "..."
Girl: "..."
Look, just never talk about weight or make-up with girls. Always go with the haircut. It's not insulting at all and girls, actually, really like it when we notice. If you spent forty to sixty dollars on a haircut, you'd want people to notice too. Also, it's undeniable, girls are pre-occupied with their hair. There is not one girl that has not, at one point in her life, seen cutting her hair as something of major significance and issued out world polls asking whether or not she should do it.
I'll tell you something girls don't want you noticing, though. When they pluck their eyebrows.
Luckily, most of you guys don't notice this. I, on the other hand, do. For me, plucking my eyebrows happens never, so I kind of notice when it happens to other people. But for some reason, other guys don't. All they know is that something's changed, which leads them to the 'haircut' hypothesis. If you think about it, it lends a solution to the conflict of girls getting haircuts and guys never noticing them: When girls want guys to notice they got their hair cut, they should remove any hint that they ever had eyebrows.
After all, relationships are an exercise in compromise.
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