Oh the joys of floundering through the wonderful world of dating. So many nights spent lying awake giddy with excitement after a particularly phenomenal date, followed by a morning spent singing along to Otis Redding and Al Green. Yet, so many precious evenings wasted on a potential lover who you find out five minutes in thinks “Jersey Shore” and “16 and Pregnant” are the greatest shows on TV and thought your comment on B.B. King alluded to Burger King.
Attempting to find a somewhat respectable and intelligent suitor can be quite the challenge while frequenting Wando’s every weekend and ordering a fishbowl with enough sugar and calories to meet your quota for the week. But if you miraculously spot a gem in the sea of seedy characters and decide to exchange your real phone numbers, what seems like your lucky night slowly turns into a barrage of troublesome thoughts.
What I’m referring to is the stage you soon find yourself in after roundabout five to seven dates. Social norms do not dictate clear rules regarding what is and is not acceptable behavior during this limbo period that makes or breaks any potential relationship. After you get past those first couple of weeks of agonizing over whether you should text back right away and risk coming off desperate or wait 20 minutes and risk forgetting to even text back, a new set of pesky problems lay before you.
The first predicament I typically stumble upon is, when is it acceptable to send frivolous texts such as your roomie just flashed you her nips? Essentially this comes down to the question of when do you feel comfortable with him or her seeing right through your trivial text as merely a pretext to engage in conversation. This can be quite the terrifying prospect, but is crucial for establishing any kind of rapport with said person. You hardly get to know someone intimately if all of your conversations consist of, “What up?” “Not much, you?” “Samez.”
Moving forward a date or two, when can you switch from the asynchronous text messages that allow you to hide feelings of dejection or the fact that you’ve totally prepared your speech ahead of time to the menacing phone call? Before you make this monumental transition, you have to be sure you’ll have a steady voice and absolutely no dirty thoughts lingering in your mind in order to avoid a Freudian slip. “Would you like to meet me at sex tonight for dinner?” might make for a nice chuckle later on in the relationship, but you sure as shit will have ruined your well-prepared speech—and possibly opened up a new can of worms, namely said person trying to get in your pants the rest of the evening.
Internal conflict number three: When can you show up to a party he/she invited you to without your posse of chums as your security blanket? And if you do fly solo, are you going to be the awkward chap chillin’ at the keg trying to gain some liquid courage by pumping your stomach with a deplorable amount of Keystone Light? Or will your fantasy of dancing with said person to Notorious B.I.G.’s “Big Poppa” transpire? Keystone… Big Poppa?
Next up: small talk. When do you get past the small talk stage (which, by the by, I am particularly unskilled at) and start probing a little deeper into the critical determinants of compatibility such as cream-filled doughnuts vs. plain or Nickelback vs. any other band in the world? (The correct answers undoubtedly being plain and any other band in the world, and any other answer being an immediate deal breaker.) Or, if you’re like me, what are your feelings on separate bedrooms?
Once you sail past the small talk test, the next question that plagues my thoughts is when can you enjoy the sound of silence without sending awkward vibes? Now I happen to be quite comfortable with silence, but I find other people shifting their position, fidgeting or starting up a game of Angry Birds as a sign they feel somewhat uncomfortable with the lack of tête-à-tête. How long must we wait until watching a movie or eating a lovely meal with the occasional comment here and there does not result in getting knocked down to a five on the sexy scale?
And if silence proves too unbearable for your beloved, can you make honest statements such as, “Sorry my breath smells like dirty gym socks, next time I’ll try and lay off the Fritos,” or “Is it cool if I pass on cuddling and go make myself a grilled cheese?” Or are those off limits until you have been necking for at least two months?
And once you hit a relatively serious stage, the most daunting question of them all comes crumbling down on you: When can you go number two comfortably at his or her place? Does it depend on what kind of damage you’re planning on doing while you’re in there? Or do you just need a bottle of Febreze handy? If there is any prospect of spending 24 or more hours with someone, there is also a 95 percent chance this quandary will emerge in full force while you’re in their company. Dating norms have not sufficiently prepared me to deal with this dilemma, and it will most likely serve as the bane of my dating existence until my beau tells me straight up, “Everyone poops.”
Thus far I have managed to maintain my game face to a somewhat respectable degree considering the sadistic ambiguity of the initial stage of dating, primarily because my prospective partners tend to either plummet very quickly on my rating scale or mysteriously fall off the face of the earth after date number two. Nevertheless, these pesky predicaments will continue to plague me until I find a poor bloke foolish enough to want to spend the rest of his sorry life with me. In separate bedrooms, that is.
Have any hot tips you can share with Rebecca on how to tackle the dating field with a little more finesse? Send them her way at alt2@dailycardinal.com. She’d greatly appreciate all the help she can get.
