In Which We Give You 10 Rules For Dating Worth A Damn

To the Gentlemen

by ALMIE ROSE

Gentlemen. I sense a dating crisis among our generation. The movies have lied to us. Nobody dates anymore. I'm not ready to give up on the movie dating montage we all want so here are some suggestions to help you along:

1. Zachary Braff, stop following me.

This is the 2nd time in 6 days that you and I have been in the same place. Oh I know: you didn't mean it, it's an accident, you don't know who I am, blah blah blah.

This one is important:

2. Gentlemen: If you are on facebook and you are in a relationship you need to put that shit on your profile. If you have a girlfriend you need to click the little button that says "In a relationship." 

It takes two seconds and saves heartache. You don't even need to put the name of the person you are in a relationship with. But you need to declare it. To not declare it is tacky. And weird. I've had guy friends who counter that with, "I don't want people to know about my personal life on facebook." Are you serious? Really? Really Charlie? Then don't get on facebook. Get on linked-in or get your own website where you can put whatever the fuck you want.

3. If you have my number and are texting/calling me for the first time to see me, please suggest dinner.

I am worthy of dinner. Drinks = please take off my skinny pants and do things to my genitals on my couch while "Who's The Boss?" plays in the background. I don't want to speak for all women, I really don't, but I know that most of us appreciate being asked on a real date. And look, there are times when all I really want to do is get into your skinny pants with the TV on for background noise. But if you don't invite me out to dinner then you will never find out. Now if you're taking me out for drinks at a jazz club or something, that's different. But if you ask me to meet you at the bar where they serve free hot dogs, then have fun with yourself and Tony Danza. Even Patrick Bateman took his women on dates.

4. I always say that with a great number comes great responsibility.

I'm not joking. I mean, I am kind of joking when I say it because to say that with a serious tone of voice would make me sound like a tool, but the sentiment behind it is real.

5. If you ask me to dinner, don't try to sneak past the dinner hour and then text me.

Do you think I'm not going to realize that you're texting me at 11 instead of 7? Do you think I just don't get hungry? I love to eat. I'm like a little kid, I love going to restaurants. They're magical. Take me to In-N-Out, just own up to the dinner date.

This one is for the ladies:

6. Ladies, if you are in a relationship, you need to put that on your profile too.

And if you're going to name names, under "in a relationship with..." then you need to put the name of your real boyfriend. Not the name of your best friend, not Christopher Walken, not "art and beauty", but your boyfriend's name. I have a friend who thinks it's hilarious to put her best friend's name...even after she got into a serious relationship. Her best friend is a guy, so that made the whole situation confusing for everyone. Let's all just make facebook easier on each other.

7. No one has an answering machine any more.

If you really wanted to reach me, you had several ways of doing so: cell, text, email, facebook message, twitter, robots or some shit, etc. So if you didn't contact me I know it's because you really didn't want to. It's not like you left me a really lovely long message on my answering machine about how you can't wait to take me out for dinner at Dorsia but I didn't hear it because I was in the shower. No. This is not a Meg Ryan movie. Welcome to 2009.

8. Don't ask me out if you have a girlfriend.

Honestly, I'm surprised that this even needs to be said. But if this happens, if you do ask me out and I find out that you have a girlfriend, then I have every right to be steamed like Seymour Skinner's steamed hams. Once a guy asked me out and then wouldn't add me on facebook (which is suspicious, it really is) because I later found out he didn't want me to see all of the lovely photos of he and his girlfriend on it. I don't blame him, if I were him I wouldn't want me to see that either. But if I were him I wouldn't ask me out in the first place.

9. If you're throwing a party and you invite me, that can count as a date.

Just don't invite me if you're already bringing a date. If you do invite me to your party, please introduce me to your guests; it's rude not to. But if you do introduce me to your guests and then take their camera, take a picture of me, give them their camera back, and say, "This is for you to masturbate to later", that's worse. Maybe I'm just old fashioned.

10. Be a gentleman.

I'm going to stop here because if I go any further then my head may explode. This is why my relationship with Sven is so good. Imaginary boyfriends are the best kind of boyfriend.

Almie Rose is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Los Angeles. She is the creator of Apocalypstick. She last wrote in these pages on the AMC drama Mad Men.

"Quicksand" - Tim Buckley (mp3)

"Martha (Tom Waits cover)" - Tim Buckley (mp3)

"Peanut Man" - Tim Buckley (mp3)

In Which This Is One Way To Stay Alone

How To Be Single

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Gems culled from the comments on this Jezebel post:

Don't show me your hair plug scars on a first date.

Don't tell me how many girls you fucked on your job as night manager at a hotel.

Do not ask my friend who has an artificial eye, and it's somewhat obvious, "What the hell is wrong with your eye?"

Do not say, "I kind of hate feminists."

A moonlit walk on the promenade is not the time to share your thoughts on the Holocaust being a hoax. In fact, there is no time for that ever ever ever.

Don't tell me you shave your chest and legs because "I'm a serious cyclist" and then have me feel your stubble.

Do not tell me, within five minutes of meeting me at a party, that you get 4 times as large when aroused.

Don't say, "I know women like it when men are forward. I want to take you home and fuck you." when I'm obviously not interested.

Do not tell me that you share a bed with your ex-girlfriend, whom you live with, and that your current girlfriend doesn't know.

Do not come up to me in a bookstore and tell me I have beautiful feet and you would like to photograph them.

Do not start reading the newspaper during the first date.

When hitting on someone of a different race, it's really fucking inappropriate to insist that sleeping together is really our duty, because the mixed babies would be so beautiful.

Do not ask me to tell you about my "hot lesbian encounters" when you find out I went to a women's college.

Do not say "Can I kiss you?" at all. It's creepy and it should be pretty obvious if it's okay. If you try and it's not okay I will dodge, no harm done.

Do not tell me what works on Katie. As in, "I don't know why you're not coming, it takes like two minutes with Katie."

When curious about my ethicity, do not phrase the question as "So what are you?"

Don't sit at a table full of hot women and after 5 shots of Patrón announce that you like single mothers because they're "grateful"

Do not assume because I smile and am nice to you in the workplace that I would be amenable to you accosting me in the hallway and trying to make-out. I WILL kick you in the shins AND tell our boss.

Don't tell me you never see your wife anymore.

Don't try to get me to have sex with you because you're a 22 year old virgin. Or at least, don't give me that reason.

Don't ask if my friend is hot every time I mention a friend.

At a work conference, don't show up at my hotel room door in the middle of the night with a Coleman lunch cooler full of Bud Light and ask if I want to "talk."

And absolutely under no circumstances, when I say you look familiar, do you reply you must have met me when you liked black girls.

Do not wait a full 24 hours to tell me the condom broke. Tick tock, buddy!

Don't tell me you fantasized about killing your brother as a child

Do not invite me up for a drink (while I'm waiting for a cab) and, after I tell you we aren't going to have sex, say "Oh, that isn't really how I do things."

Don't talk to me for forty minutes and then ask if my friend is single.

Do not tell me how much you miss your ex-girlfriend, but you're ready to move on with whomever because you want to be married within a year.

Don't ask me if it's a weave (it isn't). Don't insist I'm lying and ask to inspect my scalp as proof. When you discover it's really my hair, don't tell me I must be mixed to "be so dark with such good hair." In fact, don't ever use the term "good hair."

Don't ever bring me to your parents' house on the first date, where your mom will tell me that I'm going to be a great girlfriend, and then make me trudge the snow in non-snow appropriate shoes through an apple orchard to meet your father.

Do not tell me after spending the night making out that I was drunk enough that you could have raped me.

Don't tell me I could make a lot of money stripping and then rock back on your heels and smile proudly at me like you just gave me a huge compliment.

Don't tell me you usually don't date girls like me but "what the hell"

Do not invite me back to your apartment and then try to slow dance with me to Lady In Red

Don't tell me over beers that you're looking for a "cuddle buddy". Especially don't then tell me it's not about sex, you really just like to cuddle.

If we are at a party don't say, "You look really good, if I didn't just break up with you I'd hit on you."

Don't call your ex-girlfriend to tell her that you've "got a stone fox now" and "you're over her for real this time", then hang up, start crying, collect yourself, and spend the rest of the evening rhapsodizing about how wonderful she was. I can't imagine why she would dump a gem like you.

Don't ask to take a picture of me so you can put it in your blog. The answer is no.

After telling me you're a plastic surgeon, refrain from telling me my button nose is cute but I "should really lengthen it to sex up my face." and offer your services.

It won't work for you to say to me and another friend of mine, who is pretty but overweight, "I wish I could put your head on her body."

"You really look Jewish," is not a good pick up line regardless of whether I am or am not.

Don't inform me, while we are naked in your bed, that your usual "moves" won't work because I'm bigger than the other girls you've fucked.

Don't practically beg me to go to a wedding with you three months down the road on our first date. Desperate and creepy.

When I'm holding my newborn baby, don't talk about how much you love the taste of breast milk--especially when you're married to my good friend.

Don't ever say, "GIRL DRAMA!" when I'm telling you about a problem I'm having with a female friend.

Don't tell me, a tall blonde woman of northern European descent, that you are really, really into Asian woman and are on lots of websites catering to such.

Don't say, "everyone always thinks I'm gay".

Don't complain at length that your dog shits all over your house because you can't figure out how to train it, and then ask me back to your place.

Don't troll Craigslist looking for someone to have a threesome with, find someone, and give her MY NAME AND NUMBER without even telling me! I got a call last week from some woman who said my bf told her we were looking to have a threesome. I was like WTF?

Don't say "You look like a model from the side, but from the front you have birthing hips."

Don't attempt to have sex with me while pretending I'm someone else. Yes, I can tell.

Please, please do not tell the girl working at the bagel shop (me), "I hope you fuck better than you make that sandwich." Secondly, it's not a sandwich, its a bagel. Fuck.

Don't wake me up in the youth hostel to let me know I can circumsize you with my Swiss Army knife if I'd screw you afterwards.

Don't offer to share a cab home and then say there is something important for me to see in your apartment and then have it turn out that it's actually your friend's apartment and you just live in a weird, closet-type area and then try to read me a bunch of bad, depressing poetry when I'm trying to leave while telling me that you "wrote it about me and didn't even know it" and then leave a bird skeleton in a tin box outside my apartment several days later with a note: thinking of you.

Don't tell me you love me, commit to a monogamous relationship, have a discussion about not using condoms, pay for birth control pills, and then let me find out that during the ENTIRE duration of our relationship you've been fucking random men, women and trannies from craigslist (literally anyone who would have sex with you) and then coming home and having unprotected sex with me.

Don't suggest the possibility of us giving each other enemas someday soon.

Do not tell my friends when you meet them how you are going to get me pregnant. When we have sex do not tell me you are trying to get me pregnant and it's okay because your mom will raise it

Don't tell me that your baby momma is only giving you drama because she's having "dick withdrawals", 'cuz chances are, you're still fucking her.

When in the middle of a fun, flirty conversation, don't lean in and say, "it's ok, I like small tits!"

Don't show up to our first date an hour late because you had to take a shower before you came here because you were helping a friend move, then wait a minute before admitting it was actually your ex-wife. Then wait ANOTHER minute and admit she's not actually your ex-wife yet.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.

"Smiling At Strangers On Trains" - Frank Turner (mp3)

"The Outdoor Type" - Frank Turner (mp3)

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" - Frank Turner (mp3) highly recommended

"Imperfect Tense" - Frank Turner (mp3)

In Which You Should Always Drink And Date

I Might Practice Santeria Once I've Had A Few Sangrias

by GEORGIA HARDSTARK

On a recent girls-night-out (yes guys, we have those and yes, we talk about you), my close friend, who we’ll call K, was reporting back from a first date with a guy who, before this date, seemed to have a lot of promise.

Besides him being cute and having an interesting job, K and this guy had hit it off upon meeting through friends at a bar. After a few email exchanges, plans were made to meet at a local coffee house. The verdict? “Well,” she told us over pint glasses of murky beer, "we just didn’t have much to talk about." "Oh," we all echoed disappointingly.

K is an awesome girl, and it had been too long since a guy of equal caliber had taken her out and shown her a good time. We all thought this new guy was a shoo-in. What went wrong?

They had both shown up to the coffee house (a swanky Silver Lake spot) on their vintage Schwinn fixed-gears, I’m sure she looked adorable in some sort of designer-yet-casual get-up, and they had sat in the outside patio drinking expensive lattes hoping, I’m sure, to capture that same connection they had experienced upon first meeting. But it didn’t happen.

We all puzzled over it for a moment, hoping to use our collective successes and failures at dating in order to dispense some sage advice to K. I was the first to speak; “Uhhh, maybe you guys just needed to get drunk?” was my bit of wisdom.

I didn’t think it’d be well received, but to my surprise, the lovely M retorted with a spirited “yeah!” I was glad to hear I wasn’t the only one who thought of alcohol as a necessary means of getting through those first few, nervous dates.

"OMG you are HOT! I think?"

I’m a social person by nature, I always have been. Unfortunately, I also have a tendency to get overexcited and little spastic, which leads to extreme self consciousness, which in turn leads to me to forcing myself to sit quietly as to not embarrass myself.

Cue the shots of Jameson, pints of beer, or glasses of red wine.

Just as you might notice what he or she wore, what kind of car they drove, or if they have a tramp stamp, the type of drink a person orders tells a lot about them, too. My rule of thumb is; if a guy orders anything with cranberry juice in it, or anything pink for that matter. OK, hell, anything with any kind of mixer other than Coke (and I mean regular coke, not diet), then it’s probably not going to work out. In the same vein, if a girl orders a pint of beer, a whiskey on the rocks, or an Irish car bomb, marry her.

There’s something about drinking alcohol, not even the “getting drunk” part (although that does come into play), but the actual act of drinking alcohol, which relaxes me and makes me feel more cool and collective. Is this alcoholism? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. What I believe it to be is “social lubrication”, and it’s a necessity for me when I’m dating someone new...someone I really like.

You may not want to get drunk enough to eat a bacon wrapped hot dog on the first date if you are planning on making out. If the date goes down in flames, however...

The first thing that makes drinking a necessity when dating is that it’s something to do. How much do you hate that “what do you want to do?" ”I don’t know, what do you want to do” back and forth that you have with someone when you don’t know them very well? A good answer to that question is “Let’s go have a pint at Red Lion” or “How about margaritas at El Coyote?”

See? You’ve immediately indicated that a) you’re a take-charge kinda girl or guy, and b) you’re ready to have an intimate conversation with this person, which as we all know, is what normally happens when you drink with someone.

A girl I know - let’s call her “me” -was dating a new guy, one she really liked. While driving home from a party (which would have counted as their 3rd or 4th date) Sublime came on the radio. Being somewhat intoxicated, (don’t worry, I...*ahem* she wasn’t driving) an excited and heartfelt solo sing-along ensued.

Do you think the excuse of “but I’m from Orange County!” the next morning when relaying this mortifying experience to her friends would have sufficed? No, it would not. But! “I was drunk!” worked just fine. In fact, the drunken Sublime sing-along turned out to actually be endearing to this guy! Can you believe it?!

Sublime = That's when things got out of control!

Drinking in the beginning is a necessity is that it gives you a handicap. Did you tell him about the time you got pants-ed in fifth grade? Did he lean in for kiss and spill beer on your jeans? Did he pull his own finger and fart?

Let’s just say you have a lot of leeway when it comes do doing and saying embarrassing things while drinking, way more that if you did those things while sober. An added bonus is that telling that guy or girl things about your childhood which you wouldn’t normally share without first imbibing in some spirits, makes them feel closer to you.

Before I make my third point, I’d like to first request that my dad stop reading this. That’s right, Marty. See that little red “x” at the top-right of this page? Click it. Do it now, or we’ll both regret it for life.

No really dad, stop reading right now!

Okay, now that I’m without parental supervision...ummm, drunk sex? Possibly the most awesome thing ever! Guys, you know that embarrassing straight-edge tattoo on your back that you got in high school? Or that mole that looks strikingly like a third nipple? Or your insistence on leaving your socks on during sex?

And ladies, you know how your ass jiggles a little too much when you’re unclothed? Or how much bigger your right boob is than your left when you’re not wearing a bra? Or those sounds you make in the middle of an orgasm that make you sound like you’re bat-shit crazy?

All those things are waaaaay less noticeable when you’re drunk, which is why it’s so hard for some people to have sober sex in the beginning of a relationship. Follow my advice, and those creepy bedroom habits of yours won’t be noticed until you’re a couple months into the relationship which by then, if you’re doing everything else right, he or she will be too smitten with you to dump you.

It’s a lonely world out there, folks. Having someone you love to belly-up to the bar with is a wonderful feeling. A few post-date hangovers is a small price to pay for that, don’t you think?

Georgia Hardstark is the contributing editor to This Recording. She had a million dollars but she spent it all on booze. She blogs here and tumbls here.

"Amy's Song" - Joshua Radin (mp3)

"What If You" - Joshua Radin (mp3)

"Only You" - Joshua Radin (mp3) highly recommended

Joshua Radin myspace

with ingrid michaelson