Heck Of A Guy

Never date a woman whose personal ad suggests her affection for you will come in second to her preference for Harleys — whether her predilection is for the motorcycle brand or a batch of guys named Harley.

There are no gestures that please all women all the time, but these seem to work with surprising frequency:

• Fetching her coffee in bed
• Keeping these items on hand: her preferred brands of liquor, coffee, & other potables — and a chilled bottle of decent champagne
• Assuring there is always at least one extra roll of toilet paper immediately available

Paul Tillich was right when he declared, The first duty of love is to listen.

Listening makes love possible.

It also makes it easier to buy gifts that don’t get returned.

In contemporary sitcoms and romantic movies, the dialog that takes place when a couple breaks up inevitably includes inane clichés like “I hope we can still be friends,” “I just need some space,” and “It’s not you; it’s me.” In real life, however, … it’s pretty much the same.

While there are lots of ways to find dates, success favors the proactive. I found, for example, that my original strategy — sustaining vigilant readiness in anticipation of the spontaneous arrival at my doorstep of a naked, exceedingly sexy, surpassingly bright woman equally possessed of an outstanding personality and a passion for me — to be minutely, but nonetheless fatally, flawed.

While there are lots of ways to find dates, I submit that the Online Pity Profile strategy may well be the most counterproductive. Ads falling into this category are immediately recognizable by the whining quality of the headlines. For example,

• “Isn’t there one decent man out there who wants a high-quality, loving woman?”
• “Just a nice guy looking for a TRUSTWORTHY woman who believes in virtue and loyalty.”
• “Can’t someone recognize beauty that is more than skin deep?”

Speaking only for myself (and perhaps, as I fervently hope, I am not the target audience for these folks), the appeal these ads are intended to generate eludes me. I cannot envision responding to such an ad with anything along the lines of “Say, that certainly sounds like an intriguing person and one I would enjoy getting to know on a personal and intimate level” let alone something more traditional such as the classic “Oh Baby, got to get me some of that.”

Technique and skill in bed are desirable qualities, but enthusiasm, courage, and a refusal to take oneself too seriously are sexier. (Of course, there’s nothing wrong with bringing it all.)

A self-realization forced upon me by dating is that I’m not so hot on the introductory phone call. The typical online dating routine is to do the email Mambo for a bit and then escalate to telephone calls enroute to a first date. Routinely, I am quite the articulate (some would even say “eloquent” and still others would say “Shut up before I pound your face”) individual — until I confront the ominous combination of a dial tone and a desirable semi-stranger, at which point I am instantly transformed into a babbling idiot. And, as does any real man, I know that repeated exposure to the evil cooties that infest telephone systems neutralizes testosterone, evokes the dreaded baby-talk and pet-name references by otherwise sane women, and seduces those of my gender into making silly promises and declarations (e.g., “Yeah, baby, I really really love you” “Heck no, honey-bunny, you aren’t getting fat; your body is, in fact, perfection manifest in flesh and blood.” “Sure, we’ll have a long talk about our relationship — real soon”) in the increasingly desperate hope of ending the conversation.

A second self-realization forced upon me by dating is that a desirable woman can be a heck of a motivator. My awkwardness with the phone notwithstanding, I have managed to suck it up and speed dial with the best of ‘em.

As bad as I am on the phone, I’m even worse on those first dates. I think I try too hard. Or not hard enough. Or something. I suspect this may be a problem for others as well and have been working out the details of a business plan to provide surrogates for the first date (SurroDates, Inc.) who would hammer out details for what will then officially be the clients’ second date, the point at which I seem to blossom.

Even if you end the first date by taking your companion home, saying “Goodbye,” performing the peck on the cheek farewell kiss, and driving away; and then you go around the block, return to her home, repeat the goodbye, kiss, and driveaway; and then you return once more, … she still isn’t going to count that as the third date.

The good news is that every one of my grownup dating relationships has involved threesomes; the bad news is that the threesome has always consisted of my date, me, and a 300 pound gorilla named Logistics. Arranging calls/meetings/dates/insert your own euphemism is a far more frustrating exercise than I had anticipated before signing into this supposedly madcap, wild, and zany world of post-teenage romantic intrigue. I foolishly anticipated that my psychological energy would be directed toward finding someone compatible, dealing with rebukes, languishing from unrequited love, and matters of that ilk, all of which pale when confronted with the logistical terrorism faced by two dating adults because of

• Their need to produce an income or two
• The geographical distance between them (and there is always a significant geographical distance – in fact, my charm apparently increases in direct proportion to the distance between my home and my date’s location. I’m considered hot stuff in Wyoming, for example)
• The fact that at least one of these adults is crazy-glued to a couple of roommates who claim kindred and have the advantage of youthful energy and narcissistic amorality

I attribute this disparity between my expectations and reality to — well, to the fact that sometimes I’m an idiot. Perhaps the inability of otherwise reasonably perceptive individuals (a group that would, ostensibly, include me) to foresee obvious hurdles in the course of constructing a relationship is nature’s means of perpetuating the species. If we all acted exclusively on the basis of rational principles, I suspect there would be approximately 62 dates annually in the continental United States.

When the woman you’re dating says, “I think we should try living together,” Never Ever reply “You’re kidding – right?” This is almost always a suboptimal answer.

• Supplemental Hint #1: Giggling and other expressions of mirth, no matter how good-natured in origin, can make matters significantly worse (no small accomplishment)
• Supplemental Hint #2: Don’t count on an explanation on the lines of “I must have been really sucking down those Hot Spiced Tequilas last night; I don’t remember a thing. Did I say anything stupid?” being of any help whatsoever. Similarly, transferring the Evil Twin Brother or the Sudden Onset Of Amnesia plot devices from daytime soap operas to real life is likely to dissipate their verisimilitude and that all-important willing suspension of disbelief.
• Supplemental Hint #3: Prior to interjecting into this situation reminders that on numerous occasions both the woman in question and the individual she now refers as “Satan’s Spawn” (”that’s Dr. Satan’s Spawn to you, Lady”) agreed that living together was not in either’s best interests — one would be well-advised to take into account a brutally honest self-assessment of ones own capacity to execute immediate evasive maneuvers and mount a substantial defense.

I’ve dated enough to know that Waylon may have been wrong when he sang,

Somewhere in a land far away and a time far different from ours, I can imagine the existence of a good chain gang.

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