Megan has a pretty good round-up, but as a connoisseur of horrible dates that make excellent stories, I’ll add a few:
1. Don’t tell me, on a first date, about the time you pooped your pants on the Jenny Jones Show when you were performing the commercial outro with your Rick James cover band. Don’t tell me that on a tenth date. Just keep that one to yourself. (Yes, I understand it was a really intense note, but still).
2. If you have a child, that’s probably a good thing to mention early on. However, if your child is closer to my age than you are, it’s probably inappropriate for you to be asking me out.
3. When you figure out that the feminism thing is one of my interests, it’s probably best to say something other than “So do you hate men?” The truth is, I do kind of hate the ones who ask me that.
4. If it’s 11pm on a Saturday night and I tell you that I have to leave because I need to go to the library and study, I am lying (badly) in order to get away from you. If an excuse to end the date is transparent and horrible, don’t ask to share a cab with me or insist on walking me to my next destination. We both know what’s going on. Accept it, and move on. At least the night is young.
5. Don’t pull the feminist card on me when I won’t hook up with you. “You know Jill, there was this little thing called the Sexual Revolution…” is not a particularly good strategy. Neither is asking me how much money you have to spend before sex is on the table.
6. Don’t tell me — especially on a first date — that you’re actually mostly attracted to men, but you want the house in Connecticut and the white picket fence and the golden retriever and the kids, so you date women, despite your total lack of sexual or romantic interest in them. (No, adding “But I give great oral sex!” doesn’t help).
7. A few years back, were you a married Mormon dude in Utah with a few kids? Did you play in a seven-person band that consisted entirely of your immediate family? Maybe mention that up front. But perhaps don’t go into the details of your messy divorce from your wife, who you believe is a “huge bitch.”
8. Don’t bring your little brother along when we go out. Definitely don’t ask me to take him out on a Friday night, because you’re going away for the weekend and you don’t want to leave him alone. He is 20. He’ll be fine.
9. Don’t tell me you know “this great little Italian place” and then take me to the Olive Garden.
10. If we start discussing our reading habits, it’s probably not brilliant to say, “I don’t read.” However, if you’re going to say “I don’t read,” it is even less brilliant to add, “But I thought The Da Vinci Code was really smart. But I think the movie was way better than the book.” That’s basically the equivalent of listing The Bible as your favorite book in your Facebook profile. Or The Da Vinci Code, for that matter.
What are your major learned-from-experience dating no-no’s? And, more importantly, can you beat the “I dated a guy who pooped his pants on Jenny Jones” story?