It’s been over a year now since I last seriously dated anyone for any real length of time, so I figured with the perspective gained from such autonomy I would write a column on the various aspects of dating and relationships—from an outsider’s perspective. Most would readily admit that dating and the nuances therein are in a state of perpetual change, but in the twenty years that I’ve been on the dating scene (you may remember that the first girl to break my heart was Macy, in kindergarten) I’ve found that while the styles and trends change, the core rules have remained the same. The first and last thing that I’ve learned to expect when it comes to dating is to expect nothing. Everyone is very different, and while some girls want the door held open for them, others will walk out on you if you try to pay for them on a date. So forget old fashioned and new fashioned; your best bet in the modern dating scene is to play it all by ear, and try hard not to be yourself.
But before we even get into dating, I think we should discuss attraction. What is it that makes someone attractive? In my prototypically lazy and unqualified research this week, I discovered that the most stereotypical elements of attraction are a sense of humor, smile, and eyes. I also discovered that no one wants to be informed that any one of these qualities is the qualities that their partner finds attractive. This is because everyone wants to think that they are truly unique. But I think the biggest problems in relationships occur when people confuse attraction with love. Attraction is a lure, and fades quickly, but love grows slowly, like a plant, and instead of water, it just needs honesty and a psychologist.
I think that I’m single because I don’t care too much about trying to make something like love work, because I believe that love should be magical, and while you should work to keep a relationship working, you should not have to create or prolong love. And I really don’t know what attracts me to another girl. Is it the beer, the wine, the liquor, or the combination of all three, that creates my usual attraction to at least ten women, per bar, per night out? And when I’m sober, I can easily fall in love with a check out girl at the supermarket, without conversation. So I don’t pay heed to attraction anymore.
But dating is a game that I suck at, and as a competitive bastard, I’m constantly disappointed with my failure to successfully turn a date into a relationship. I’m like the Buffalo Bills of the 1990’s; I can get to the playoffs, but I can’t win the Super Bowl. Dating is hard for me, because I don’t feel like I can charm a girl by sitting quietly next to her during a movie. Seriously, why do people attend movies on first dates? There’s nothing to do in a theater with a stranger except to pretend you’re not both thinking about the date, how each of you feel about each other, and whether or not you’re going to hook up later that night. But for the sake of all that is good and holy, if you are going to go to a movie for a first date, go see a movie that makes you laugh, because if your date sees you laughing and smiling, while revealing your sense of humor, then according to my meager research, you have a 66% chance of being found ‘attractive’ by your date.
If I had a hot date this week, I’d take her to see “Snakes on a Plane” with Samuel L. Jackson. As a Bachelor of Arts in Film Studies, I avoid giving away any of my income to the second rate slackers that make Hollywood films, despite my affinity for the silver screen. I do, however, see one movie in a theater, per year, and this year, I’ve chosen “Snakes on A Plane” as my one film for 2006. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “that movie looks awful!” But “Snakes” looks like the least pretentious and contrived film of the year, and my premonitory abilities indicate that Hollywood is not going to manage to come up with anything better for your tired soul to view this year, than “Snakes”. Although the faux NASCAR film with Will Ferrell is certainly vying for my attention.
The other two most popular first dates are going out to dinner, and going out to a bar ‘for a drink.’ The problem I have with dinner dates is that when I eat, I look like a wretched Neanderthal slob, and thereby risk a lot by trying to eat politely in front of a stranger, while simultaneously attempting to impress them, since it takes so much concentration for me to not eat like a slob, that I can’t really attempt to eat politely and follow a conversation and be charming or entertaining. And as far as drinking goes, while one drink is a social lubricant, and two drinks can help you show off some of your true wit, four or more drinks can bring you into the ‘Mel Gibson Zone,’ where you could end up offending your date, her entire hereditary lineage, and an entire religious group. So I play things safe on dates, and drink about eight to twelve drinks so that I’ll pass out before I get the chance to say anything really stupid or offensive. Ladies, I’m still single!
I have very few rules when it comes to whom I’m willing to date. Rule #1, I won’t date someone who has cheated in a past, serious relationship. I feel like human nature is repetitive, and once you try something once, it’s always a million times easier to repeat the action, and it gets easier to justify immoral behavior every time you give in to it. Rule #2 is that I won’t date someone who is less intelligent than me, because I don’t want to constantly have to explain myself, my feelings, or my twisted logic to someone who is supposed to be my equal—unfortunately, I find it increasingly difficult to meet women who are remotely as twisted and moronic as myself. Rule #3 is that I won’t date someone unless they are really hot. What, you didn’t think that I was a superficial asshole?
A very important thing to consider if you are entering a relationship is how your partner will get along with your friends. If you don’t care at all about your friends, and the long term infrastructure of said friendships, than you can date whomever you please, but trust me, as a single dude with a lot of friends, you can do a lot of irreparable damage to your friendships and your friends’ sense of trust in you by dating a total asshole or bitch for any extended period of time. And despite what many people think, from watching too much reality TV, this rule still applies even if the person you are dating is “totally hot.” Being hot, outside of Hollywood, is not a carte blanche for lack of personal integrity.
And this segues nicely into the age-old debate of “Do girls like assholes?” How is this even a debate? I can’t even count how many ex-wives Larry King has assembled in seventy plus years of being an asshole! But as many of my friends will attest, I’m an asshole, and yet I’ve never met a girl who liked me because I was an asshole. This is because I am not an overt asshole; I’m a subtle asshole, and this trait only appears after months of getting to know me. This means that I’ve never been on the beneficial side of the not-so-golden rule: Do unto women as you would not want done unto you, and receive much action. But in college, I saw the rule work at parties as often as two plus two equals four, so I’ve decided that this rule was apparently given to man directly from god, in the biblical days. And this edict from god was finally discovered along with the Dead Sea scrolls by archaeologist’s last century! And I quote: “If thou art male and want-eth for thou to bed with thy hottest women of thy tribe, and thou also want-eth them to want-eth thee, then thou shalt ignore and berate said women until they cannot resist-ith thy asshole-istic charm-eth-eth.” And if you still don’t believe that women fall for assholes, than please explain Ernest Hemingway’s magnanimous sex life to me, given that he was arguably one of the most publicly sexist men of the 20th century.
I would like to say that women are less shallow than men, when it comes to dating. And for the most part, I think that this is true, after all, men are hairy, smelly, sweaty beasts without a whole lot of physical beauty to offer. Even the prettiest of pretty boys is still nine hundred million times less attractive than a real dog of a girl. But even so, if you venture far enough south, and west, in this country, you will encounter a breed of women known as “Southern California Girls” who drive around in little convertibles with license plates like the one I saw last week: “honk if you’re rich, cute, and single.” Proving, yet again, that the order of attraction for superficial women has always been and always will be: Power first, looks second, and last and least, moral integrity and availability. This is how men like Michael Douglas get to marry women like Catherine Zeta-Jones.
As I get older, I get closer and closer to the age where girls are supposedly supposed to tire of being mistreated by assholes, and then move onto a search for “Nice guys”. I’m definitely a nice guy, but I’m really glad that I’m not a “Nice, Nice guy”, because I think these wretched souls get the worst end of the stick for sure, as in the end that’s full of bitter tear inducing thorns that never give off anything more than sexual disappointment. I have befriended a few “Nice, nice guys” in my lifetime, and these dudes are too much to handle! They treat everyone as an equal, put everyone else ahead of them, and they aren’t doing it under a deceptive or manipulative pretense—they are just actually this nice, and so no girl wants to risk hurting their feelings, so they have trouble dating women, let alone getting laid. UNICEF should start accepting donations for the “Nice, nice guy” cause, because only together, can we make a difference in their plight.
I have often discussed with friends the fact that our culture collectively seems to know who, superficially speaking, are the sub fives and the nines and tens, (also known as the ugly as sins, and the hotter than Africa’s), but no one can really know for sure who the five through eights are. I’m fairly confident that I’m above a five, but I’m also damn sure that I’m no nine or ten (I am eight beers short of a six-pack, and my feet are abnormally large, so I look like I wear clown shoes). But I wish that our society would divert some of the cancer and diabetes research funds to the under publicized need for a scientific scale that measures attractiveness. This is because I want to know exactly how attractive I am, so that when I go to a bar, I know who’s in my league, and who is not. I worry that I might be trying to compete in the majors, when I should be dominating the minors. And I would rather win a pennant in the minors then lose a lot in the major leagues.
But the single greatest thing that I’ve gained from my experience with dating is that each of my ex-girlfriends has proven to become the best, and most honest friends that I have. I mean they each know me, inside and out, literally, better than anyone else on the planet, and they have nothing to gain by being even remotely dishonest with me, when it comes to advice. So when I need relationship advice, I can go to an ex-girlfriend for their fair and honest opinion. But I don’t think that this rule applies to ex-boyfriends, because I know that I don’t think any future man could ever be as good to any of my ex-girlfriends as I was, and so if they come to me for advice, my advice will always be the same; dump the loser, he’s no Mike Oppenheim. And if you think that this column makes me seem arrogant, good! The single most attractive quality a man can possess is self-confidence.