Category: Dating

I don’t remember when we (read: men) started doing it, but it’s definitely been a while. Frankly, as long as I can remember being sexually attracted to women, I can also remember either verbally or mentally rating those same women.

I’m not saying it’s OK or that men are the only ones who do it. Hell, they even made a movie about it, so it has to be socially acceptable, right?*

The point is, it’s 2013. We need to get beyond this one-through-ten system.

First off, I’ve always believed that there should be two scales, one for celebrities and one for the rest of us. Let’s be honest, the hottest girl (or guy) you’ve met isn’t shit compared to Denzel Washington or Scarlett Johansson. Those are 9, 10’s. Your version of that wouldn’t rate on the celebrity scale.  People like Jay Mohr and Hillary Swank on the other hand…

The second, more important variance, came to me about a year or so ago.  A cousin of mine brought up the Area Code Rating System. Every time he and I joke about it, I thank him for coming up with it and he insists (somehow, unaware I know he didn’t invent it) he was just passing it on from someone else.

For those of you unaware, this has apparently been around for a while. You assign a three digit rating to each girl… just like (wait for it!) an area code. Ludacris is rolling over in his proverbial grave**. Digit one is 0-9 for the face, digit two is binary for whether you would (1) or wouldn’t (0) have sex with her/him, and digit three is 0-9 for the body.

Roll that around for a minute, because it’s really a pretty good system.

The only issue I could find with it is that I can’t have a girl from my home area code. I’d imagine that getting your home area code, if even only to say you saw her, is a crowning achievement. However, I’m sad to report that I’m from a 9-0-8, which has to be an impossibility. You’re not going to run into some incredibly hot chick that you refuse to have sex with. Just won’t happen.

The only way*** I could figure that to work would be if Kate Upton had some sort of sexually transmitted disease. And even then, I’d imagine someone will give it a shot: “If it’s good enough for Justin Verlander…”

Before anyone reading this considers it over-the-top sexist, let me just say issue this last PSA: women may not rate men as crudely as I’ve described men doing the reverse, but they do it just the same.

OK, have fun.

*A few words about that movie, if I may… While I really did enjoy it and found it to be a truly original (cast-wise) and funny movie, I left the theater very annoyed. Why, you ask? Because I couldn’t stand that this fucking guy ended up with this woman. I get it, it’s a movie, but this is just too much. She’s not just out of his league, she out of his sport. The tagline is, “How can a 10 go for a 5?”  Really? How about, “Why would a 15 go for 5? How rich does this 5 need to be? Is the 15 mentally handicapped?”  Here’s the cherry on top… It’s not like Alice Eve’s character is a moron. No. Besides her incredible looks, she’s also independently wealthy, smart, and… You get the point. [Editor’s note: After reading this over I realized, it paints me as a whiny bitch. However, seeing as how that’s what I am, I decided to leave it in.]

**You could argue, based on his career at this point, it’s not exactly proverbial.

***You know who else could fit under that umbrella? Disney characters.

Confession 1: The title of this post is a lie.

Confession 2: This post was originally intended to be about a singles event I attended this week but in the absence of actually humorous things occurring, I decided to go in a slightly different direction.

Confession 3: Took a little over a week off after a death in the family. Moving onward.

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So, why the hate, you ask? Well, as I said in Confession #2, I went to a singles event this week. Tuesday, I believe. It was at some douchey bar in the meatpacking district, sponsored by Match.com (more on that in a moment).  I don’t remember the name and don’t want to embarrass the actual club, so I’ll just make one up… Let’s see, what would sound fake? How about, my favorite number… and my favorite month?

Let’s go with elevenaugust.  No, no. That definitely sounds fake.  Fine, how about tenjune? Let’s go with that.

There is something a little odd about an online dating site having in-person events, but I think of it like what should have happened with Blockbuster deciding to get into the Netflix game (except not years and years too late). Side note: good call by the executives at ‘Buster (No, just wait this out… This whole to-your-door and instant movie thing will fade, trust me!).

Heading into that night I had hoped for two things:

1. Get some phone numbers, meet some gals.
2. Remember some funny stories, chronicle them here to benefit off other’s misery.

Neither occurred. Strangely, I forgot about that little part of male-female interaction that you still have to have something to say to them. For all my inability to shut the hell up once I get going, I’ve always seemed to have a faulty starter in my engine when it comes to strangers (male and female alike). Also, the lights were incredibly dim and I don’t have the greatest eyesight, so from the jump I was at a disadvantage.

So instead, I re-focus my energy on this “tenjune” place. The pretentiousness of that whole district is enough to make you want to vomit. Unless of course you’re a hot girl (in which case, you could just puke in the restrooms of these fine establishments to keep up that Meatpacking physique).

Where to start? How about with this insane dress code that exists? I went with two people who were dressed better than I was, one of whom couldn’t stop telling me how under-dressed and out of place I’d look. He wasn’t being obnoxious, simply stating a fact (which on any normal, non-Match.com event night would’ve been true).

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a particularly sharp dresser all the time… But that night I was wearing corduroys, a button down and dress shoes. It wasn’t like I was wearing an enormous jersey and baseball hat… I’m not bitter.

How about the bouncers at these places? First are the ones who won’t let guys come in unless they have women with them. I honestly don’t have the energy or time or space (and this is practically unlimited, so let that sit) to fully describe how much I fucking hate those guys/that attitude.

Second are the bouncers inside. There was a guy at this Match.com event that was camped out by the area where the bar wrapped around. Any time anyone got close, he’d say something unnecessarily tough like “Over there, my man.” This guy (and others like him) need to get punched in the face. Repeatedly. Is there a less aggressive, less threatening group of folks than the people that attend these events? Is it such a crime to let me stand there while I wait my turn (read that again: while I wait my fucking turn!) for a drink?

Finally, I can’t stand the music (or the lines, or the drink prices, or the drugged out clientele, or the…). What happened to playing music we can all relate to? You’re telling me that place wouldn’t jump if “Juicy” came on or “Sunday Bloody Sunday”? Play the oldies for my/our generation… please. Or at the very least, mix them in.

I apologize if this comes off too much like a rant, but that area of the city is so unbelievably pretentious that I can’t get over it. And yet despite being a reasonably intelligent guy, I can never get over that fact no matter how many times I go.

Maybe I’m the moron.

As featured on EliteDaily.com

I’ve been on a number of first dates in my life. Second dates, third dates, bad dates, good dates, meet-up-at-the-bar-and-buy-one-drink-before-we-have-sex-so-you-don’t-feel-cheap dates. I’ve pretty much run the gamut in my 25-years and counting, and I have to say, that’s pretty impressive considering I started dating fairly late into what would be considered my sexual prime (which, for those counting, has already ended if my current success rate is any indicator).

With all my experience considered, I’m pretty confident with regards to knowing how to act if you’re looking to impress a woman. Honest admission time: I am a single man, no girlfriend to my name or Facebook account. I can hear you, reader, wondering how it is I can claim to be so all-knowing, yet not have any actual current success to prove it.

Well, to you I say, just because you know how to do something doesn’t mean you can actually do it.  I know how to dunk a basketball (I believe it involves some combination of jumping, palming a basketball, and ramming it through the hoop with loud grunting noises optional), but I can’t actually touch the backboard.

However, it isn’t much fun to talk about impressing a woman on a first date, now is it? No, I prefer the rarer topic of alienation. If your mission was to completely and totally alienate a woman that put her trust and faith in you on a first date (trust that you won’t kill her, faith that she’ll have a decent time with you), how would you go about it?

Of course, there’s the obvious tactics.  Eat with your mouth open, talk constantly, watch SportsCenter the entire time. Those choices are so simple they don’t even deserve to be expounded upon.

No, I wanted to go a little deeper. I thought about writing this as a numerical list of the best ways to achieve full alienation but ultimately scrapped that idea after realizing that none of these are really better than any other. They’re all good. Which is to say, they’re all bad.

Go Out Late For Several Nights In A Row Before The Night Of Your Date

I actually did this recently, but not on purpose. Wednesday and Thursday nights of the week I had a Friday night date I went out until around 2 or 3 a.m., only to have to get up for work by 7 a.m. By the time Friday night rolled around, I was beyond exhausted but the prospect of eventual intercourse excited me enough to at least pay for a few rounds of drinks with a girl I had (at best) limited interest in from Match.com

Beyond the facts that I wasn’t attracted to her physically (the photos, frankly, could very well have been of someone else, but that’s for another article) and the conversation was numbingly mechanical, I was exhausted by 10:30 or so for obvious reasons.

No matter who was talking, I couldn’t stop yawning. I’d given up apologizing and explaining each one, despite internally trying to stave off the inevitable.  Eventually, I couldn’t fight it any longer.

I wouldn’t say I fell asleep, per se. It was more like one of those long blinks, the ones where your chin hits your chest and breaks your stupor long enough to realize: Hey, I don’t recall anything that just happened, I must have been asleep.

Nothing more flattering to a woman than falling asleep during one of her stories. Trust me.

The Reverse Bill

When the time comes for your check, be a gentleman. Take it before she can even sneak a peak, push it back towards your date once you’ve satisfied your curiosities, and confidently say “Don’t worry, I’ll get the next one.” Girls love confidence, so I’ve heard.

That’ll make her think twice about that nauseating “Oh come on, let me leave a little bit” line. Then again, nothing’s worse than the staged hand-in-pocket/purse move that might as well be one of those fake cabinets in your kitchen that never opens.

Ask Her Out To Dinner

But don’t meet her out until you’ve already had a satiating meal of your own. Without her.

Upon arrival at the pre-determined bar or restaurant, simply explain that you forgot you were meeting for dinner (Note: For this method to work best, it’s preferred that you set up the dinner date within 24-48 hours of the actual meeting). Continue to explain, without expressing even the slightest hint of remorse, that you should still proceed as planned and that she should definitely still have dinner. No, you aren’t hungry at all any longer, but you wouldn’t want to stop her from eating.

Order For Her

If that last one isn’t your speed (if this article was a college course, that last one would be for advanced students only), try actually taking her to dinner but don’t allow her to order for herself. There’s nothing a woman in this century loves more than being told what to do and what to eat by a man she just met.

You can go one of two ways, depending on how big of a dick you feel like being. After you’re done placing your order, pause for a second as if you’re actually going to let her order for herself like the adult she is. Then, a word (or even a syllable) into her order, cut her off and ask for either an enormous, fatty meal or its polar opposite. Either go with the steak and loaded baked potato or a side version of the house salad with dressing on the side. Personally, I think the latter choice is the best one, so far as alienation goes but as our friends from Legends of the Hidden Temple said, “the choice is yours, and yours alone.”

Allow For Flexibility When It Comes to Scheduling

Work to find a time for a first date when you have friends from out of town coming in and staying with you. Instead of being a bad friend, bring one of your old pals on the first date with you. Bonus points if that friend is a girl, even better if that girl is hotter than the one you’re on the date with, and best if that girl is your actual current girlfriend (Note: In the history of civilization, the last version of this move has never been successfully pulled off and not for lack of effort of the male species.)

Relax

Being comfortable on a date is of the utmost importance. I don’t care if you went to private school since you were a zygote, there’s no way you feel better in a pair of khakis or pressed jeans and button down than you do in a baggy, worn t-shirt and sweatpants.

If she can get away with a soft, flowing dress and yoga pants, why can’t you be comfortable and thus cagey of your less-than-desirable physical attributes.

So, that’s my list. Of course, there’s more obvious ones like the timeless “flirting with the waitress (or, any woman you’re not on the date with)” move, showing up incredibly late, saying awkward things (When did you first get your period? My sister got hers at 11, was that normal?) or talking exclusively about other dates you’ve gone on recently and women you can’t wait to see again.

None of those are bad and trust me, they’ll all work wonders, but is it fun to do what everyone else has done? I say, if you’re going for alienation, go for originality as well.