bitch, all these rules!

So, tonight is date number two. I'm going over to his apartment, which feels a little bit intimate for a second date, but really? I have no idea. I feel like there are all these rules that people have about dating and what you should or shouldn't do when or where and I don't know how anyone keeps up with any of them.

Last night during my run (since the World Series is apparently more important than my new Wednesday night staple, "Glee") I watched this special on TLC called The 650-lb. Virgin. It's about this guy who weighed -- can you guess? -- 650 pounds, lost about 400 of it and is now dating for the first time in his life. And if I thought I was the Mayor of Akwardtown, than this guy must by the Viceroy of the sovereign nation of Awkwardland. Because DAMN.

But he's sweet. Because he used to be GINORMOUS and now he's not. And you just want to pull for him. And lucky for him, he's got this friend who was his personal trainer who has taught him everything he needs to know about socializing, including how to rock a spray-on tan.

So in the little bit of this special that I caught, our friend Former McFatty (I can't remember his actual name, and calling him that is way more fun than Googling the answer) is going out on a blind date with a gal who was selected for him by a local matchmaker. And before he goes out with this potential match -- which turns out to be a festival of awkward proportions, let me tell you -- they show him out at a bar with his buddy, asking his female friends for advice on his big date.

And no sooner does he ask than they start firing off rules. Bitch, all these RULES! (That is what I wanted to shout at the ladies on the TV, but I did know that they couldn't hear me, and also that it may earn me a reputation among my fellow gym-goers.) You can't do this on a first date, you have to do this on the second date and certainly no one ever does THIS until date four or five. Don't talk about this, just talk about that. Never approach this topic, this topic and that topic until date five, unless she's (fill in some qualifier here), in which case you'll want to talk about it on date two.

It just starts to feel like a mathematical word problem after a while and I hate math but I actually sort of like dating. So I'd prefer if they intersected as infrequently as possible.

It just makes me think that maybe all of these rules are the reason we're so awkward to begin with, or the reason we perceive ourselves that way. We all think there's a certain way we're supposed to behave or certain things we're not supposed to do on a date, and so when we cross those lines we feel ridiculous. When, really, the only thing ridiculous about the whole situation is that two people with flaws and quirks and messy things about their personalities are going to pains to hide ALL of it.

Why can't we just go with our guts? My guts rarely let me down. Except in cases of over-consumption of bean and queso dip, but I apologized for that, and we're moving past it. Besides, didn't those women who wrote that book of dating rules in the 80s both end up getting divorced? Now that's a ringing endorsement for throwing the rules directly out the window and never looking in the rearview.


cheers,
elizabeth