Erm...

There's been a little shakeup at the offices of DATE (namely, there were a rather inconvenient four days between leases for me), so posts are going to be few this week on DATE. However, we'll return soon with more rip-roaring gigglies to make all your dating dreams come true*.

*Statement has not been evaluated by the FDA...or any other agency, federal or otherwise.

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.

So you've been stood up

It's hard not to start this post like one of those pamphlets you pick up in the high school guidance counselor's office. "I've got hair in strange places and my voice cracks as much as my skin - am I a man now?" "My mom wears sunglasses and has lots of coverup - is my dad a bad person?"

There's nothing pretty about being stood up. It's a pretty fantastically awful feeling, getting dressed, rummaging through your bag to find that emergency Xanax, and dragging yourself uptown in heels only to have to switch to vodka tonics after half an hour of picking at lint. The nervousness lasts until 8:06, then turns to that neck-craning anxiety thing until you officially get pissed at 8:16 and start to picture all the wonderful tricks Satan must have up his flaming sleeve for Mr. Very Very Wrong.

If you must, call at twenty minutes after the date was set to begin. Perhaps she really is stuck in traffic or only had forty minutes to save her job and all the mammalian life in the western hemisphere. Perhaps. Don't fly off the handle until you've made the call, if that's what you feel you need to do. It must be said, though, that you should probably save this call for being stood up on something that isn't a first date.

For first dates that people actually want to go on, they will turn away patients, hand in projects early, and clear the traffic on the East Side Highway with their wicked sweet telekinetic powers to get to the rendezvous on time, whereas by the third date there might already be a more lax outlook on punctuality. So make the call if you must, in the event that Sheila, Hot in Argyle is running just a tad behind.

But if it's the first date? Don't bother. The great thing is that, even if you can't stop yourself from calling, if you've been stood up, he's also not going to take the call at 8:20. He's not even going to give you the chance as you make a royal ass of yourself as you instruct him on the exact way you feel he should go about copulating with himself.

As established in the last post, even if her hand was severed in a freak Sea World accident, the onus is still on her to make first contact. She didn't show up - and you've got to accept that. You cannot call after that. You cannot text. You cannot wait outside her door with silly string a bullhorn. You've already watched your good hair and six Jolly Ranchers and what was left of that shiny "she really, really asked me out!" feeling go swirling down the drain, so why, why hand over your dignity on a "your mother was so fat her village ran out of butter on Maslenitsa" text message? (Sorry. Russian joke.)

So you've saved up all your anger and resisted the urge to dial his number. What do you do now? You can't go home. You're going to break your spoon (and possibly your wrist) trying to break into a freezer-burned pint of Cherry Garcia and bust your remote when you play "The Post-It Always Sticks Twice" - for the third time.

No, no, here's where you dig into the Lennon/McCartney songbook for a little advice - get by with a little help from your friends. I have a friend - in fact, a future contributor to this humble blog - with whom I share an agreement: we call each other when dates flake. Instead of venting useless anger at someone who doesn't care that we have it: we holler at the sky with each other about how much people suck, have a coffee, have a smoke, and avoid the pint of misery that's calling our names.

Because the truth is that there are plenty of other great so-and-so's out there who won't make us get all spiffed-up and drugged-out just to develop the nagging feeling that our laughs could beach a baby whale. You'll be okay - if you hold your head really, really high.

Oops.

With all these magnificent dates you seem to be going on lately, there's one scenario we haven't considered yet: the date you want to get out of.

There are so many reasons one might want to get of a date. Oh, I've nothing to wear! Whoops, it seems I've scheduled our tira misu for the same time as my shiatsu. Dog ate your number?

So, what are valid excuses? Let's start right at the beginning. Not having anything to wear, having a less important but less nerve-wracking engagement, and your PDA not reminding you are all terrible, terrible excuses. Plan ahead: pick out an outfit and save it for the date, use your PDA so you don't double book, and leave yourself a post-it on the fridge if you're the type to forget important engagements. Agreeing to a date is a form of verbal contract, and it's one that's so potentially mutually beneficial that you should make it a priority. You are not allowed to cancel a date for any of these reasons. That simple.

You accidentally saw off a limb when your sister mixes big news with power tools. Your mother has a sudden coronary incident while you're driving her home from temple. The moon shifts in the night sky, causing your 24-hour werewolf syndrome to flair up.

All right. Life happens, and so do emergencies. Sometimes you can't call to give reasonable notice because your hand and the cell phone it was clutching are in the belly of a shark. Your date is ordering his second glass of wine, and he's going to really start hating you after half an hour, but there's really nothing to be done - except call when your hand is reattached. Do it - your date, assuming she believes you, will feel silly about cursing you to high Heaven after glass #3, and will more than likely take a rain check.

Ah, but then there's all the things that don't fall into the categories of nerves and life-threatening emergency. I don't want to go into to much detail, lest you start feeling than gnawing, vaguely itching, burning sensation some of us like to call guilt. You know, when you start thinking about how you don't really like the color of her hair or, on second consideration, his once-endearing laugh is really just a soul-crushing cackle. This may come as a surprise, although I hope if you've been keeping up it isn't - anything that happens between the time you say yes to swordfish on Saturday and the time you hand the keys to the valet is much, much to shallow of a reason to call off the date. You've said yes - you've made that contract - and your head isn't going to go flying into orbit if you spend an hour with him and determine that, in fact, his laugh could beach a baby whale.

Or maybe you think it would? You can't stand the thought of seeing the way she cuts her food into individual atoms, but you also can't stand the thought of actually making the call. So you...stand her up? May word spread like wildfire and your armpits be infested with the fleas of a thousand camels if you stand someone up. Letting someone go through the process of getting ready, scrounging at the bottom of their bag for that emergency Xanax and paying through the nose for a cab ride uptown only to discover that their date has gone deaf, dumb, and coward should be a felony. Date unto others as you would have them date unto you.

You know I don't care for rules, but I think a little...standard? of thumb might be in order here. Canceling a date should be like canceling a doctor's appointment: if you can't give 24 hours' notice, you should expect to pay.

How long do I have to wear these pants?

First, my friends, allow me to apologize for the paucity of posts this week on DATE. But trust us, we've been doing research.

Lots of research.

In any event, it's time to answer that most pressing of questions, that dating quagmire which so many enter and so few navigate well: how long until we get to the nookie?

This week's poll asked you when you got naked with a prospective partner (before or on the first date, after the third date, when the time was right, or when that band of gold was inscribed and wrapped tightly around your finger).

Let me say that I'm impressed with this week's answers! Most of you said "if and when the time was right," although, in all fairness, I was kinda lopping you a softball this week.

I was surprised that no one went with "after the third date," since, as I've mentioned, this is one of the magic threes that sneaks its way into our dating culture (the three-day no call and the three-date no *ahem*).

My dear respondents: you appear to be more enlightened daters than the average! However, since this spurious piece of dating advice is still so widespread, it's time to debunk it. Once and for all, let's dispose of the sex after the third date dogma.

First of all, for many people, waiting to do the horizontal samba until after the third date seems like insanity, but they either roll with it because that's what TV and their grandma says to do, or they have sex when they (and their partners) feel like it, and then feel guilty or concerned that they've broken some magical code, a twelve-step plan they feel they should be following to dating bliss.

If I've said it once, I've said it ten thousand times, and I'll say it one hundred thousand more: there is no twelve-step plan to dating bliss. (In case you haven't noticed, you're reading the wrong blog if you're obsessed by meeting Mre. Right tomorrow and need to know how to reel hir in.)

You're looking for specifics, right? First things first, having sex before, on, or after the first date is contraindicated. Not forbidden, not breaking an elusive, ethereal moral or amorous code, just contraindicated. Again, here at DATE we like to give pragmatic advice, and this is more of the same: experience tells us that when you undress on the first date, you don't tend to get called again. Don't ask us why: we have our theories (discussion soon to follow), but this isn't science. It might be a disturbing trend, but it's a trend nonetheless.

So why no callback? Grandmothers (at least the ones who listened to everything their grandmother's said) will say it's because you've shown yourself to be too easy and the other person is going to lose all respect for you. Element of truth? Maybe. But in that case you have to rely on most people being raving hypocrites who want to be unhappy forever. (Element of truth? Good God I hope not.) After all: it takes two to make the mattress creak. If not, you may just have a faulty mattress.

All right, Team DATE, it's not the raving moralistic self-loathing hypocrisy we've learned it was. So what it is it?

The far more likely culprit is that you've tossed aside the need to get to know you better. Having sex on the first date can be a little bit like giving your full curriculum vitae plus family photos of your summers in Kennebunkport and a detailed medical history on the first date. Bottom line: if mutually agreed, there should be a reason for the person to want to see you again, to continue learning who you are and what you're about. You probably wouldn't bring family photos from Kennebunkport on a first date, would you?

Are there exceptions? Lawdy, yes! I stress: sex on the first date is only contraindicated, not verboten, not a sin, and not a 100% fatal error. But you have to acknowledge the risk, which is essentially skipping half of dinner and eating a big bowl of Ben and Jerry's.

And now we join your third date, already in progress. You've been agonizing about the whole sex thing (get off it, you've been thinking about it, and if you haven't been, again, wrong blog) because you know that if sex is going to happen, it's probably going to happen in a couple of hours. You've had two other magical, sparky dates with Mr. Present Tense and now you're ready to find out what he's like between the sheets. After all, you can only talk about Russia's aggressive action in Georgia or plummeting stock prices so long before you turn into a dripping pool of obsessed need. It's the third date, dammit, and it's time to go spelunkin'.

This is pretty nutty, too. It casts a pallor on the rest of the evening, and maybe even everything that happened before it. Sex - and wanting sex - can wrap your brain around its lacy finger and never let go. Psst: you could have done it after the second date if you felt like it.

Let's get real: after the second date, you're already talking to your friends, you start thinking about this person a little bit more often - that is, assuming date number two wasn't a total disaster. After two successful dates, you're not a couple, you're not even "seeing each other," really, but you start thinking ahead to the magical threshold that is the third date.

I'm going to preface my next point by saying that no one should ever take their model for relationships from Woody Allen movies. I think that's self-explanatory, but if it's not, go rent one. Any of them, really. At least the ones he's actually in. Woody Allen only ends up with the insanely pretty girl at the end of the movie because he gets to write the script.

However, there was one time where I think he really got it right (and incidentally, it's a film where he doesn't end up with the pretty girl at the end): walking down a beautiful New York street on his first date with Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall," Alvie (Allen) suggests to Annie (Keaton) that they should kiss now, saying, "We're just going to go home later, right, there's going to be all that tension, you know, we've never kissed before, and I'll never know when to make the right move or anything, so we'll kiss now, we'll get it over with, and then we'll go eat. We'll digest our food better." This is, in my opinion, pretty much the wisest thing a Woody Allen character ever said. (It happens right around the two minute mark in the clip below.)



You'll digest your food better. I'm not kidding. If you want to, forget this nonsense about the third date. It's a silly, moralistic proscription that hardly does anyone any good. You're willing, s/he's willing, so why are you still listening to Aunt Gertrude?

On the other hand, if you're not the kind of guy who brings a condom* to any of your first several dates with someone, you have to feel fine with that, too. Sex is one of trickiest parts of dating, and I'm talking even before it happens. Two (or more) people have to agree to do some kind of ridiculous things together in the hope that they're both really going to enjoy it. So maybe you want a full curriculum vitae, family photos from Kennebunkport, and a detailed medical history before you unzip those trousers. That's okay, too.

[*By the way: all sexually active people should have protection on them at all times. It's not creepy, it's not presumptuous, it's smart.]

Not having sex with someone soon enough to suit your tastes can make itself a deal breaker, but please refer to all of last week's posts before you decide that you have a sex rule and that everyone you date has to magically measure up to it.

To sum up: play it by ear. There is nothing mysterious that happens after the third date that suddenly makes it acceptable to have sex or necessitates that you have sex if you don't want to. As always, assert yourself in your dating communication and make it clear, if it comes to that, what your sexual expectations are.

Happy dating!

Strength in numbers

If it's happened once, it's happened...actually, it's happened almost every time two people have ever gone on a first date with each other: the nerves get to one or the other of you and the night turns into an uphill battle not to grab for the Valium.

Kids, it's time for us to reconsider all this pressure: boy meets boy, boy asks boy out, boy agrees and then realizes he can barely crawl out from under his preprogrammed neurotic rock long enough to ask the waitress to leave off the shallots (and please, dear God, ask her to leave off the shallots).

Dear friends, trusted readers of this humble blog, I present the solution: group dating. It's not just for the prepubescent set anymore.

Don't get me wrong, this is part of my secret plan to take down the dinner and movie first date. (OK, not so secret.) You should, as I'm sure you're by now aware, do absolutely everything in your power to stay at least ten yards from the entrance to any food-selling establishment on your first date.

But the group date (not that you're dating the group - you're with me, right?) solves so much more. The pressure is on to be a superhuman version of yourself on a first date - funnier, more attractive, and more intelligent than you have ever been and any other person has ever been. There you are, unsure of how much of the conversation you'll have to keep up, if you'll be able to do it well, if the other person is going to have a vocabulary any larger than a bird in a gilded cage... The pressure can be enough to make you not even want to leave the apartment.

Enter the group date. Four or more people (the smallest option's really two more people, otherwise you're on a traditional date with a third wheel) who can share the responsibility around. A whole slew of people, say, roasting marshmallows or gazing up at the stars or playing tackle football or picking through the racks at a vintage clothing sale or...well you get the picture. More people to be interesting, to make obtuse references to Kant's proofs, to start the "what's your favorite Bjork song?" game, to laugh louder than you or be worse dressed than you. The worst that could happen is that you invite someone along who's better than you in every way and your date falls ass over teakettle for someone else. The best thing that happens is that this newfangled environment prevents you from turning into a quivering blob of "Play it Again, Sam" Jello.

You should make it's clear that it's a date. Call it a date. Sit next to her, hold her hand, and make sure you have enough time and space to whisper sweet obtuse references to Kant's proofs in her ear. But play along, join the group dynamic, and feel the pressure float away. While you're not busy trying to be Captain Date, the best parts of you just might shine through.

Not totally useless...

I'm heartened to know that the work I'm doing on this blog needs to be done.

Last night, enjoying a cup of tea and a cigarette on the balcony (yes, sometimes writers' lives really do involve moments like this), I heard two of my (straight male) friends having the following conversation:

"See, when you're a man, you're hoping your partner will never change, never get old and fat, but when you're a woman, you want to change everything about your boyfriend."

Ugh. One of them summed this theory up as, "men love women, women love a project."

If you might still be tempted to use this logic in casual conversation, please refer to all of last week's posts. DATE returns tomorrow with another exciting edition, but tonight? Um, tonight I have a date.