My therapist told my ex to tell my mother...

Thanks for helping to continue to create DATE! Another entry full of strictly pragmatic advice tonight, culled straight from your answers to this week's poll question about certain words you may or may not have ever said on a first date.

Some of you seem as shocked as I am that these words might pop up - but let's be fair, you can't be on your A game all the time if you can barely support the stemware - and you must be very happy daters! The other choices were ex, therapist, mother, and penicillin, and ex and mother had a few takers.

There are some things that should never, ever come up on a first date, and exes, therapists, mothers, and socially communicated diseases take the "did he really just say that!?" cake.

Exes really deserve their own section. Lawdy, lawdy, y'all, it's hard not to take you hard to task for this one. But I've taken a downer and done some yogic breathing, so let's start at the beginning. Exes are exes for a reason. Anytime you go anywhere near this territory, you're breaking the carefully constructed first-date mask: remember, you have no past, you have no bodily functions, and you don't eat onions. You can't put your best foot forward if you're dredging up the cemetery of past loves that blew up in your face. Hmm, probably could have worded that more carefully...

The way to avoid talking about potentially embarrassing things - and, frankly, talking about an ex is kind of like popping a zit at the table - is to focus, focus, focus. She's there - every other lady you've ever bedded isn't... unless you're having a more interesting evening than I've ever had. There are two people you should be talking about on a first date - you and him. Don't talk about your exes, the waitress, the people at the next table, your crazy neighbor with the 47 cats. Just you and her, period. If you're even a half-decent human being, you're going to be compelled to say nice things about your date, and positive communication is the honey (vs. vinegar) of dating.

In addition to not having bodily functions on a first date, you also don't have mommy issues, and so you should never mention either your therapist or your mother. Now, of course, the vast majority of people have mothers and almost as many people have therapists. (Not that I'm suggesting a causal relationship...) Say it with me: if she's not my date, I'm not going to talk about her. No one (well, almost no one) is going to judge you for having a therapist, or even for having mommy issues, but anything you pay someone $150 an hour to listen to is far too intimate for the first date.

And so you shouldn't bring up other doctors either. Don't talk about your plantar's warts or your bunions or your chronic indigestion... and for the love of God(s) and all that is holy, don't say free clinic or penicillin. The human body is a wonderful, terrible, scary thing that tends to fall apart over time, but remember: on the first date, you might as well be made of marble, since kissing's as close as you're going to get, right? You don't have to talk about the crabs you got in Mexico last spring break or anything you've ever gotten stuck anywhere, or anything that involves the words puss or topical analgesic. Even if you have an active STI, you needn't disclose until the two of you have decided that nudity is on the menu. To do otherwise is presumptuous, and might send him running over the salad bar and through the woods.

With positive communication, smiles, and focusing on your date, you can avoid falling down the rabbit hole 1st-date no-no vocab.