Dating Etiquette 101

Seriously.
It seems that some of us (I'm lying... I mean those of the male persuasion) need to go over the expectations of etiquette that apply to dating. Unfortunately, there are quite a few men out there who have lost track of how to go about things, or perhaps never really knew how to behave properly from the start. I'll start off with my rules of etiquette as they apply to dating online. I would also like to offer up some pointers for dating in general, but I just can't stomach tackling both at the same time. Please stay tuned.

Online Dating Tips for Men:

* If you are on a dating website, then it is assumed that you are interested in DATING. If you are not quite sure what you're looking for, or if you are interested in playing games with women, you should not be on a DATING website. Try a GAMING website instead. If this is hard for you, then please take your profile off the dating and relationship sections and just keep your profile on the casual sex section.

* If you are married, you should NOT be on a dating website.

* If you put up a picture from 10 years ago and have possibly changed since then (???!!!), try putting up a more recent picture.

* If you put up a picture of yourself when you had hair and now you do not, put up a picture of your damn bald self.

* If you are ugly and put up a picture of one of your better looking friends, please bite me.

* If you are shirtless and wearing fireman pants and suspenders in your profile picture, please stop contacting me.

* Don't describe your attractiveness and, for the love of god, if you feel that you have to, PLEASE don't put it first. The typical "I'm a good-looking guy..." sounds awful and is so superficial. Plus, it doesn't really matter how good looking you THINK you are, as I will be the judge of that!

* Please avoid at all costs the "Ambush Introduction". What is this, you ask? The Ambush Introduction occurs when one instant messages a member without testing the waters first. What do I mean by this? I mean, send a smile or a poke or something first. If you do not receive a response in a reasonable amount of time, please forgo the instant messaging. The lack of response was our way of rejecting you without having to end conversations or log out when you contact us out of the blue and are shirtless and wearing fireman pants and suspenders in your profile picture.

Is this thing ON????

How many times have I sat around, starting at my phone waiting for it to ring?
Too many times, really. Perhaps the worst part of all is that, after all the anticipation, the phone FINALLY rings but it's not the person who was expected to call. The caller can hear the disappointment in my voice.
"Oh (in a strained voice with a mix of sadness and crushing desperation). Hi Mom"
Although I consider myself to be a modern woman, I struggle to act as a modern woman when it comes to dating. It's hard for me to suppress my traditional sensibilities. I am starting to realize now that it's impossible to date in this day and age and have any traditional values at all, but it's hard to let go.
What is phone etiquette supposed to be like these days? Are calls to be initiated in turns? I make one call and they make the next? Are we supposed to make the majority of calls?? Are they??? Do we seem desperate or too forward if we call too often? Do we seem aloof, disinterested and overly confident if we don't call often enough? Am I over-thinking things a bit???

Six

How soon is too soon???
It's not very often that I date someone I like enough to get down to business. In reality, it's just not very often that I date someone I like. So when I do date someone who I'd like to make it work with, it's always a dilemma which requires much feedback from others. Seriously, how many dates (on average) should one wait?
It is pretty well decided that sleeping with someone on a first date is not good (not to say it's not GOOD, it could be very GOOD indeed, but it doesn't seem to send the right message). The first three dates seem to be sex write-offs, but after that it's a free for all of opinions and experiences.
It becomes a complicated situation indeed - as complicated as a military strategy which requires careful planning, cunning and troubleshooting. I feel the need to pick the perfect amount of dates in order to avoid disaster. I don't want to come off as a prude, so I don't want to wait TOO long, but I do want to come across as serious and interested. I would like to be considered the kind of girl you could take home to mom... So, how many dates does this take? Some people measure this in weeks or months and not dates. This is an interesting approach, but if one was to be going on an average of 2 dates per week, 8 dates could have been had in one month, which is A LOT of dates compared to people dating on a once-a-week type schedule.
I've read Madonna's SEX book, which is very insightful in the free-love, experimental, woman of lesser virtue, oh-my-god-how-many-people(of different genders)-can-you-get-off-with-in-one-eveing kind of way.
There is a great website on dating tips (www.topdatingtips.com) that resonates more to wholesome and excessively proper people like me. I see how going for it too soon can make one come across as "easy", however sex is an important part of a relationship and if it's not going to work, it's better to find that out early and move on.
Three dates or fewer is too few. Four to five dates seems early but more reasonable. I'm thinking of a better number here - the number six. Not only does it rhyme with sex, making it both straightforward and a mnemonic device, but also, it's a great compromise between the numbers 1 (hooker) and 10 (frigid bitch).

Baggage

How much is too much?
If we compare dating to travelling, then the airport is the meeting stage. There, our baggage is counted and weighed. If our baggage is determined to be overweight, we have to pay for it, however we are still allowed on the flight.
The flight is like the dating stage, where it is hoped that the baggage will not weigh down the plane. The heavier the load, the more fuel is burned up. The dating (or flight) stage allows one time to sleep, read, relax and watch movies OR talk to the person in the next seat, learn something new and broaden one's horizons. It is like opening the baggage and going through it - maybe there are some things that are worth hanging on to, but if there are items in there that have not been used or proven to be of value in months or years, it's time to let it go.
The arrival of the flight is like that infamous 3 month dating point where one usually reaches the stage of fight or flight. If one is travelling with overweight baggage that hasn't managed to decrease in size during the flight, one might decide that fleeing is the option that makes the most sense. As most of us who travel know, it is much easier and more pleasant to carry small, lightweight baggage then it is to lug around heavy, cumbersome baggage. The same goes in relationships. Partners are supposed to help each other lighten their loads or partner up and have the ability to tackle issues and problems with twice the power of one person. I'm finding this all very interesting to contemplate.
I will make one exception to this analogy, however. If any future partner of mine is travelling with overweight and cumbersome baggage, I will try my best to work it out if it turns happens that he's carrying a set of gently used Louis Vuitton steamer trunks.

Is it wrong to idolize Karen Walker???

I love her.
I aspire to be just like her when I grow up.
The longer I spend looking for love, the more appealing a loveless marriage of convenience sounds. Karen Walker, by far my favourite character on the dearly departed sitcom Will & Grace, was a great woman. She had everything - except love. However, when one is a pill-popping, vodka-swilling, verbose fag hag with money to burn and all that free time, would one even be aware of absent distractions such as love???
She had a fabulous penthouse in Manhattan, a driver, a pharmacist, a maid, a gay boyfriend, she was dripping in diamonds and furs and, on top of everything, she was able to hang on to a part-time job! What a woman!
Of couse, it came at a price. She did have to sleep with old, fat and ugly Stanley Walker, but at the end of the day, it seemed to be a small sacrifice for all the fun she was having. The entire scenario is pretty well covered: in tough times, you have vodka and pills to dull the pain, sumptuous furs to cushion the blow and drivers to whisk you away from any unpleasant situations. There are women out there who have been able to achieve this sort of lifestyle by partnering with unfortunate looking men, such as any of Donald Trump's ex-wives or anyone who's ever dated Hugh Hefner (vodka must be a major stimulant for those girls - god, they work for it!).....
I'm not saying that this is an immediate goal, but I'd like to leave this out there as an option.

Craig's List

This is perhaps the most insulted I've ever been..... Through all the frustation and confusion that I've been dealing with while pursuing the toughest possible task - dating - this revelation is perhaps the most damaging that I've been dealt yet.
It turns out that Mr. Hello Wall (see previous related posts), who I really can't say that I miss in any way, decided to start looking for women on CRAIG'S LIST after we broke up!
WTF???!!!
He was apparently bragging to a mutual friend that he met a girl who could "suck the chrome off an exhaust pipe/bumper/fender (however the exact quote went...)". I had to laugh, as he could also have said, due to his lack of endowment, that she could "suck the yellow off a pencil". Fucking needle-dick.
Anyhoo, I just cannot believe that someone would stop seeing me and think: "where to find a great girl now?....... of course! Craig's List!".
God help me.
Isn't Craig's List where one would go to, say, list or buy an old couch? old chair?? old rug??? old, crappy, roach-infested apartment downtown?????
Apparently, though, it is a great place for one to find chrome-sucking sluts!!!

Remembrance Day

I would like, on this Remembrance Day, to take some time to remember the best times I've ever had in relationships or on dates:

* ummmmmmm
* hmmmmmmm
* uhhhhhhh
* wellllllllll
* mehhhhhhhhh
* yeahhhhh
* mmmmmmmm
* arghhhhhhhh

Okay, then................ Nevermind!

Love Story

After recently suffering YET ANOTHER dating disaster, I am now even more confused than ever. What really makes me scratch my head is that, after much research, it seems that some of the best love stories and songs are written by men. Why is it that men pretend not to have feelings and emotions when they are able to pour their hearts out into movies, books and songs that are so moving they make us melt??? I've thought about this a lot, maybe even too much, but it confuses me. Why is it so hard for so many men to confront or discuss their feelings when many others are so in tune with them that they have written the best love stories of all time?
Let's look at a few examples of romantic movies/stories written by men that are so emotional they've turned us all into blubbering messes:
* Love Story
* The Notebook
* Romeo & Juliet
* Dr. Zhivago
* Casablanca
* Pretty Woman (both written and directed by men, which may explain why Edward Lewis ending up meeting a hooker and not, say, someone at the library or in a coffee shop...)
* Bridget Jones (okay, it was written by a woman but it continues to move me to tears each time I see it and I aspire to find a man like Mark Darcy...)

All I'm asking for is to meet a man who is not only in touch with his feelings, but might also be able to put them into words. If not words, fine, but write me a screenplay or SOMETHING. Cut a girl some slack!!!!

The Right Hand Ring

Please excuse me, I'm barfing.........
The concept of the right hand ring drives me crazy and has since I first heard of it a few years ago. I understand, as a tragic spinster, that I occasionally have to buy myself a drink when I go to a bar (well, more than just occasionally and usually in multiples of 6...), but to have to buy myself a diamond??? I don't think so!
What kind of world are we living in where women now have to buy themselves diamond rings? I find this offensive, not to mention depressing and nauseating.
I am a super-consumer and love to shop. I have bought myself many things, including shoes, sandals, boots, booties, mass amounts of clothes, earrings, bracelets, necklaces, vacations, nights out with the girls at swanky bars, a car and even a bloody condo. The one thing I REFUSE to buy myself is a diamond ring. Is nothing sacred? Is it possible that I will lose faith that someone out there (male, older than me, tall, dark, handsome and gainfully employed if possible...) will one day buy me a ring? I hate to think that might happen.
In case of that eventuality, I can assure you that the finger shown in the picture above is exactly the digit that will sport the right hand ring!

The Emotional Fuckwit

It doesn't have to be a new year for me to make this resolution. In the wise words of my hero, Bridget Jones, I vow from today to:

"find a nice sensible boyfriend and stop forming emotional attachments to any of the following: alcoholics, workaholics, sexaholics, commitment-phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits or perverts"

I'm finding that it's easier to identify workaholics, sexaholics and alcoholics from the bunch, but the emotional fuckwit is pervasive and usually remains undetected until I'm emotionally attached. Since I continue to attract the emotional fuckwit, does that mean that I, too, am fuckwitted??? Or would that be fuckwitty???
Honestly, the last person I want to attract is someone who is emotionally unavailable or completely confused, however they seem to keep finding their way into my life. Perhaps they are attracted to me in hopes of getting help, or maybe (scarily) they are attracted to me because they feel we have a lot in common....... I feel badly for the fuckwits, I really do, but I would prefer for them to date elsewhere and I am hoping that, from today, I will not encounter another Daniel Cleaver disguised as Mark Darcy.

MANhattan

I LOVE New York! I travel to Manhattan on business once every couple of months and have been doing so for years. Somehow, I failed to notice until last week, that Manhattan is full of MEN!!! They are everywhere! I urge anyone to go anywhere in that city and not find one. I should qualify what I mean when I say men. They could be old, unattractive, beer-bellied burpers who frequent sports bars or baseball games, but no - the men found in Manhattan are mostly tall, dark and handsome suits. It's a man-mecca!
Needless to say, I feel that I should be spending much more time in MANhattan and plan to do so going forward. Below is a list of places with a higher than average man to woman ratio (opposite of the man to woman ratio in Toronto, which seems to be a number best suited to lesbians.....).
* Del Friscos - a steak house near Radio City Music Hall and it is just heaving with handsome, successful guys. There is NOWHERE in Toronto that compares to Del Friscos.
* Tao
* Buddakan (this is where the rehearsal dinner for Carrie and Big's wedding was filmed - I was hoping I might have mine there when I find my Mr. Blog)
* The Hudson Hotel bar (particularly in the summer)
* Basically any major street in the city, including 5th, Madison, Park and Avenue of the Americas
* LaGuardia Airport - I'm not kidding. The 6.30pm flight back to Toronto is packed with them, but they seem to disappear once we get back home!