Twittering

The Rules of Dating

The Rule Out Factors for Dating eventually lead my friend Cindy and I to come up with the list of rules for dating.

1. Always have a condom. For the boy who doesn’t have a condom, but remember -- he doesn’t have a condom, so proceed with caution, even if you have a condom.
2. Never drink anything blue. Or be party to the consumption of 10 bottles of wine between four people over the course of one night. Excessive alcohol consumption is the mother of all invitations for your darkest demons.
3. Don’t enter a boy’s number into your cell phone right away. Enter it into the notepad. You’ll be able to differentiate all the Michaels, you can add a few notes, and if he’s just about being Mr. Right Now, he’s not clogging up your address book becoming the person you won’t remember in two years.
4. No bars on first dates. Well, you can end up in a bar, but just don’t start there. It’s hard to hear in bars, so how do you have a meaningful conversation?
5. Call a trusted friend for a quick reality check before doing something off-the-charts impulsive. Word.
6. Keep perspective: the way he treats you, he treats all his dates. If a flight attendant finds you by looking at the manifest to see your frequent flier status, know that he looks at every manifest on every flight.
7. Call out a boy’s bad behavior when apropriate, and never enable bad behavior. It’s not that you’re doing him a favor, it’s that you’re doing yourself a favor by reaffirming to yourself that such behavior is unacceptable. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to call your date out on it, but if your date is 45 minutes late, get up and leave. Don’t pretend the offense didn’t happen, but don’t become your date’s mother.
8. Keep living your life. Don’t wait around for the date to give you a call -- live your life, collecting interesting stories and achievements along the way. Let him know what he’s missing.
9. Drink a glass of water. This might possibly be the greatest secret we’ve learned all summer. Who know that water was the secret juice of enlightenment?

You got any others?