Listen up, ladies — you don’t know how to date. In fact, nobody knows how to date; dating is a weird, inorganic ritual made even weirder by the fact that it now involves apps. But this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to know.
Because men are mysterious, exotic creatures whose moods depend on sports scores and the direction of the celestial winds, I have put together this guide to going on dates with them.
Please understand that some portions may not make much sense to you if you are a lady — after all, being the stronger sex, pushing out babies and living way longer and everything, we sometimes lose sight of how delicate and, well, peculiar men can be. This doesn’t mean we should be chauvinists about it.
Men are irrational
I mean, they’re always killing one another, and not even bothering to remember the amount of work, love, dedication, sleepless nights, foggy, disoriented mornings, diaper cream, and quiet drinking in the bathroom stall at work while the kid’s home with the nanny you can’t afford goes into creating and maintaining a life in its initial stages.
This is why you shouldn’t be surprised if a man does something crazy on your first date — like “neg” you or invite you to meet him at his apartment when you’ve never seen him before IRL and don’t know if he’s a hammer-wielding serial killer or not.
Like I said, men are simply not as logical as women are. Where’s the logic in keeping women as chattel for thousands of years when we could’ve gotten this civilization thing up and running much sooner (not to mention having it running smoother) if men just, you know, didn’t do that? I’ve looked for it, you’ve all looked for it, it’s not there, hence — men are irrational. It’s probably due to whatever weird biological forces regulate their mysterious man-parts and/or a build-up of semen, which makes them crazy, emotional, and otherwise hard to understand.
Men are sometimes serial killers
As previously mentioned — they sometimes wield hammers. Or other murder devices.
Women are also sometimes serial killers, but there are less of us ladies going into the profession. I feel like if we did it more often, it would immediately devalue, and there would be less prestige TV shows about it — so maybe us generally staying out of that field is a good thing. I like my Mindhunter, OK? Don’t @ me.
Not getting murdered on a date is an art that not everybody can master. So don’t be down on yourself if you fall short of the ultimate goal. Still, do up your chances of survival, because do you really want to get taken out by some guy with mommy issues and a closet full of ill-fitting skin-suits? So — always bring a weapon, know where all of the exits are, drink from a hip flask as opposed to an easily spike-able beer mug, chew tobacco so he knows you mean business, spit it in his face to create confusion if needed.
People on reddit will still say, “She was a dumb bitch who asked for it,” should he kill you anyway, but a couple of then will pipe up to say you at least tried. And that will be a very bittersweet yet noble legacy.
Men like sex
This might be news to you ladies, but dudes really like to get it on. I know it’s weird to think of it this way — after all, we are the ones with the most nerve endings in certain areas, not to mention the mind-blowing ability for multiple orgasms and other such phenomena that used to get us burned at the stake a lot — but please do set your preconceptions about male sexuality aside and hear me out.
Dudes are horny motherfuckers, they just express it in really weird ways, such as screaming “I WANT THAT ASS, BABY” at you as you’re walking down the street towards your favorite taco truck. It’s like they think you’re going to just give up on those delicious tacos and offer him that ass right then and there, right? Of course we all know that if you actually did that, his erection would wilt faster than a Jeb!-style presidential campaign. So I get it — male mating rituals are largely incomprehensible. Just know they’re not the bashful, eyelash-fluttering good boys they make themselves out to be.
It’s possible to get a man to have sex with you on a first date, just don’t be surprised if he gets all guilty and conflicted and ghosts on you as the result. Like I said, men are delicate. They’re precious flowers — always worried if their dicks are big enough, or running over the mommy issues that occasionally turn them into serial killers in their addled, gentleman-brains. It’s kind of precious when it isn’t sad.
Men are human beings
This will be very hard to accept, but men are actually human — and so, just as human beings might, they worry about picking the right restaurant, making a good first impression, and suddenly having to fart during the first real lull in conversation.
For too long, we have thought of men as mere tools of insemination, or blunt force trauma, or as couch-moving appliances who sometimes look good in t-shirts. We didn’t realize that this was misandry — the systemic hatred and disenfranchisement of an entire gender, even if it’s a very silly gender at best.
So, ladies, buck up. Try to respect men’s humanity just a little. Don’t make fun of them for having testicles or wearing useless things like ties. They’re trying to make themselves pretty for you. Learn to respect that — and who knows, maybe you’ll even learn how to date them.
Photo: Tammy McGary/Creative Commons
Very good article! I laughed at every paragraph. 💖