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November 29, 2006
The Rules of Dating: Part III
(I really need to put a proofreader on staff. How did I go from II to V missing III and IV? This is part III; in a couple of day's Part V will appear again ... with a bonus entry, quite possibly titled Rules of Dating: Part VI)
The past couple of days we've decided to accept, in order to make things a big more simple, that all women (except my ex wife) desire me. This is not a fact -- just something we're going to go with in order to keep a lot of other disclaimers from popping up in this, and subsequent posts.
We've also established that the rules I try to abide by when dating are as follows:
1. Don't date friends of friends.
2. Don't date women you go to church with.
3. Don't date women you work with.
4. Don't date your buddies' sisters.
5. Don't date anybody who lives more than one hour away from you.
6. Don't date your buddies' exes.
7. Don't date Britteny Spears.
And now, the reason behind the rules.
Don't date friends of friends: If something goes wrong you don't want any hard or funny feelings to exist between you and the friend and you don't want the friend to be put in the position of having to invite either you or the other person to an event. (Yes yes yes ... you and I both know it would be no contest ... he'd pick you.) If something goes right, well, face it ... you're pretty much going to disappear from the face of the earth and make yourself unavailable to your friends as you date the new person. That new person will also be unavailable to the mutual friend -- thus, the mutual friend has lost two friends. That is, until something goes wrong, and he/she is forced to pick between the two of you. (He'd pick you.)
Don't date men/women you go to church with: If something goes wrong you'll have to change churches. If she dumps you and the end of the relationship leaves you devastated and hating women you'll not want to be reminded of the relationship every seven days; daily if you are Southern Baptist.
This is the rule that most fundamentalists should follow. As you know you belong to the only true religion and are God's favorites. You are the only ones going to Heaven. Relationships that go seriously wrong may require more than just changing churches; you may need to change religions ... to something lesser and more likely hell bound.
Catholics come off a little easier as there are about ten masses each weekend so you'll have just a 10% of running into your ex. As you'll know she's already sleeping with someone new your best chance of missing her will be the Sunday morning 7:15 mass since there's no way she'll be able to pull herself out of bed that early following a night of raucous sex with the new guy. In any case, you'll still eventually stumble across her in church.
I've recently added an exception to this rule: if you are a gay, by all means date within the church ... they could all use a little bit of shaking up and self-examination.
Don't date women you work with: If something goes wrong you'll have to see her at work making you uncomfortable five out of every seven days. Kismet dictates that she'll eventually become your supervisor even if she works in HR and you work in IT; this is especially true with Government jobs in which ability has nothing to do with promotions (I want you to think Supreme Court Justice here).
Don't date your buddies' sisters: A lot could go wrong here. Your buddy may never hate you but your buddy's parents may.
Don't date anybody who lives more than one hour away from you: If something goes wrong on the date you'll have that long drive home to hate yourself for ever having broken this rule.
Don't date your buddies' exes: I established this rule twenty-five years before it appeared in Glamour Magazine (recently ... Sandra Bullock is on the cover with a new haircut). Glamour looked at things from the should-you-have-sex-with-your-ex's-buddies point of view and had a one-word answer that applied to close buddies of your ex and friends that the ex knew only as someone he said 'hello' to as he collected the mail. The one-word answer: don't. 
Glamour has a lot more knowledge about things like this than I do. They have a never-ending staff of seemingly-always-horny women with incredible fashion sense and if they say it's a bad idea I can only assume they've poured some serious research dollars into a study.
Me. I just think it's a bad idea. If the relationship with the woman doesn't work out, you've lost her and a buddy. Regardless of whether or not it works out you've lost the buddy and you'll no longer have access to his power tools.
Don't date Britteny Spears: I'm not sure they make a condom thick enough to make this a safe proposition.
Posted by delmer at November 29, 2006 8:03 PM
Comments
Wow, I've violated a lot of these rules. No wonder I'm single. And if I went to church, I would probably violate that one too.
Enjoying these. :) Looking forward to VI, XII and MCMXV.
Posted by: diane at November 30, 2006 1:27 PM