This blog featured on The Rumpus is SO GOOD. It includes a list of Do’s and Dont’s for dating, including:
1. Do not date the man who only ever wears Christmas-themed boxer shorts. It is not a “passing phase.” He is not “asserting” anything. It may seem cute to you at first—how you’ll stock up at Gap at Christmas so you can gift him with a reindeer print in June—but it’ll grow tiresome with age.
2. For reasons I cannot explain, walk away from the man who mentions Bob Dylan on your first date. I will defend this only by saying that I, too, think he’s great. But for whatever reason, this is a sign. “He’s, like, my idol,” he might say, or, “He got me into writing,” or, “He got him into love.” “He’s kind of like my Jesus,” he’ll say, and you need to roll your fucking eyes. It doesn’t make any sense, but this seems a universal shortcut I’ve worked out so you don’t have to.
3. Do not date a man who tells you your “future selves” are incompatible.
4. If he fetishizes poets.
5. If he’s never left the state.
6. Trust him if he’s good with dogs.
7. And especially with kids.
8. Never, ever take back the man who once took you to look at Christmas lights and then broke up with you beside a cornfield. The drive home, remember, was awkward, and he broke up you because why? Because you reminded him of his father. It was December, for Christ’s sake, just two weeks before the holiday, so no matter how much he begs—no matter how fiercely he claims he’s changed—do not let that man back in. You know enough to know: a man who dumps you while looking at Christmas lights is kind of a shitty, fucking person who is not worthy of your love.
9. Be especially dismissive if, years later, that man writes a “fictionalized” account of said-dumping for a literary journal in which he takes on the persona of the wounded, troubled man, jaded by childhood ambivalence in a house with line-dried clothes. He was doing you, he’ll write, a favor.
10. Most especially peace the fuck out if that man doesn’t tell you about that story first, and instead you must read it for yourself in a public bookstore in New York City, and you’ll do your best not to cry, but you are you, after all, and it ruins the sleeve of your favorite sweater. It had little turtles on it, even.
11. Do not date the man who tells you it’s unsexy that you drink beer and like to watch football on rainy Sundays. It’s the Lord’s day, after all, but most of all, “it’s awfully masculine.” Be a badass and watch that game in absolute defiance of ‘femininity.’ A real woman does what she wants.
12. Be wary of a man whose Dinner Making Ratio is greater than 3:1. You should never, evermake a fourth meal until your date’s cooked one for you. (Note: it doesn’t particularly matter what he makes—grilled cheese or peanut butter spread over crackers—because the point is he did the work. The point is consideration. Helping someone with their life. Being an active, contributing person who considers others’ needs.)
13. While we’re on the subject of ratios, note the Writer-Reading dynamic should be no greater than 1:1. Do not read his manuscript unless he offers to read yours. Otherwise, you’ll eventually find yourself reading his novel five times in a row, making line edits and drawing hearts, drawing smiley faces over lines you love, and he’ll only ever steal your notes and never read your four page essay. And you can forget about “Acknowledgements.” Your name will not appear.
14. If he’s a writer—and of course he is—do not fall in love with him as a narrator. They’re often markedly different people.
15. Do not—if you’re listening to me at all—date the man who fears emotional intimacy, because intimacy is the most important thing and you know this and you have known this since you were five years old in that muggy waterpark, watching that man with so much hair embrace the woman who loves him most. Do not lose faith in love just because you’re getting older, or because here is yet another birthday, or because you’re spending your days with pillows and a box of Snyder’s pretzels. Do not give up on the Romantic Vision. Love is special, and so, too, is intimacy, and it is scary but no less necessary, and forming a genuine human connection is the most important thing.
