Dear Date the District,
I’m seeing this guy, and he wants me to meet his mom. We’re going out to dinner next week, and his younger brother is coming along. In the past, I’ve always met the bf’s parents at their houses, and I’ll bring wine or dessert or something. Should I bring anything to the restaurant? And, if so, what should I bring for the brother?
If you’re eating a meal at someone else’s house, you should always bring a gift—regardless of whether or not you’re sleeping with someone at the table.
But these gifts should be more edible and less specific, like the bottle of wine/dessert. If you show up with gifts for Mom and Little Joey, and, unbeknownst to you (and possibly even the bf), Grandma decides to come along, you won’t have anything to give her (which will just make your situation worse).
But when you’re going to a restaurant, you can’t really bring a hostess gift (unless it’s BYOB, which we kind of doubt will be the case for you).
Yes, it makes you feel less awkward when you can show up and hand the person you’re trying to impress a trinket of your affection. And it certainly makes for a favorable first impression.
But you can’t really bring a neutral, please-like-me present to a restaurant, and the family certainly won’t be expecting one.
In fact, a gift might make you look like too much of a kiss-ass, and no one wants to feel like her approval can be bought.
Our advice? Show up empty-handed, and let your personality win them over. When you ask people questions about themselves and really listen to what they say/follow up with more questions, they’ll be just as charmed as they would be if you showed up with a $30 bottle of wine.
Showing posts with label bad dating advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad dating advice. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
News Roundup: Destination: Marriage. Route: Anybody's Guess
We’ve been putting off posting on that book Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough because 1) we refuse to spend 20 bucks on a book whose title is already putting women in their place and 2) everyone else is doing it.
But a reader sent us an article from The Wall Street Journal (of all places) that talks about the relationship between dating and marriage in the aughts.
The author, Hannah Seligson (who seems to have published her own book called A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It's Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door), argues that women in our generation have trouble tying the knot because the dating world has become a lawless jungle, and there’s no clear path that leads to the altar.
Here are some highlights:
Society's messages to young women are so mixed that the path to that goal has been obscured and, at times, blocked. Those of us in our 20s and 30s know that dating—and getting into a relationship that leads to marriage—is at turns ambiguous, arduous, perplexing and often heartbreaking.
So why are "Marry Him" and "Committed" flying off the shelves? Because they do what all popular books on the subject have done over the years, decades and even centuries: They lay out rules, treating love, romance and relationships as if they are quantifiable and controllable. To be a young, single woman looking to settle down today is to be in the Wild West of dating history. Daters are ravenous for advice to order the chaos.
Ms. Seligson eventually concludes that there are no hard and fast rules that can help young women conquer the dating world, and that these books only emotionally berate their readers so that when a girl’s done reading the book, she’ll jump on the next penis that looks twice, and, viola, success story.
We agree with Ms. Seligson’s latter point, but on the former, she’s dead wrong.
In concluding that the rules have changed, she perpetuates a pervasive misconception: that human nature has somehow evolved in the last thirty years.
In Ms. Seligson’s world, things were easier for our mothers. When our parents were dating, guys always had one eye on the altar. Now they see marriage as the first day of the end of their lives.
Things may have changed, but it wasn’t because someone hit a magical switch when we entered the new millennium.
Before women’s lib, girls were expected to be chaste and virginal. They went on chaperoned dates. And while they may not have described their behavior as “playing hard to get,” that’s exactly what they were doing. Most guys made marriage a priority because it was the easiest way to get their girlfriends to have sex with them.
After women started staying in school and pursuing careers, they probably put less emphasis on finding a husband. Sure, they might have partaken in free love, but they were also performing surgery and buying expensive cars with their own paychecks, and this was all huge. Marriage isn’t going to seem like the biggest priority to a generation that’s consistently shattering glass ceilings on gender lines, and so they, too, were making guys work for it.
But now most girls enter kindergarten expecting to have a career, and suddenly marriage is a priority again. But because chastity isn’t (and because the media’s constantly telling us that the best way to win a man is to fall in love with him), men have it easier than ever before.
They can sleep with a woman without promising to marry her (and without fear of impregnating her). Girls rearrange their schedules to give them blowjobs. Sure, they might want to get married eventually, but marriage doesn’t provide the advantages that it used to.
And so the “rules” for navigating this new world are actually quite simple. And women do need to hear them. They need to do what women have been doing for generations: They need to play hard to get.
While the books Ms. Seligson discusses certainly seem to offer terrible advice, the concept of dating advice for women is far from flawed.
We just need better teachers.
But a reader sent us an article from The Wall Street Journal (of all places) that talks about the relationship between dating and marriage in the aughts.
The author, Hannah Seligson (who seems to have published her own book called A Little Bit Married: How to Know When It's Time to Walk Down the Aisle or Out the Door), argues that women in our generation have trouble tying the knot because the dating world has become a lawless jungle, and there’s no clear path that leads to the altar.
Here are some highlights:
Society's messages to young women are so mixed that the path to that goal has been obscured and, at times, blocked. Those of us in our 20s and 30s know that dating—and getting into a relationship that leads to marriage—is at turns ambiguous, arduous, perplexing and often heartbreaking.
So why are "Marry Him" and "Committed" flying off the shelves? Because they do what all popular books on the subject have done over the years, decades and even centuries: They lay out rules, treating love, romance and relationships as if they are quantifiable and controllable. To be a young, single woman looking to settle down today is to be in the Wild West of dating history. Daters are ravenous for advice to order the chaos.
Ms. Seligson eventually concludes that there are no hard and fast rules that can help young women conquer the dating world, and that these books only emotionally berate their readers so that when a girl’s done reading the book, she’ll jump on the next penis that looks twice, and, viola, success story.
We agree with Ms. Seligson’s latter point, but on the former, she’s dead wrong.
In concluding that the rules have changed, she perpetuates a pervasive misconception: that human nature has somehow evolved in the last thirty years.
In Ms. Seligson’s world, things were easier for our mothers. When our parents were dating, guys always had one eye on the altar. Now they see marriage as the first day of the end of their lives.
Things may have changed, but it wasn’t because someone hit a magical switch when we entered the new millennium.
Before women’s lib, girls were expected to be chaste and virginal. They went on chaperoned dates. And while they may not have described their behavior as “playing hard to get,” that’s exactly what they were doing. Most guys made marriage a priority because it was the easiest way to get their girlfriends to have sex with them.
After women started staying in school and pursuing careers, they probably put less emphasis on finding a husband. Sure, they might have partaken in free love, but they were also performing surgery and buying expensive cars with their own paychecks, and this was all huge. Marriage isn’t going to seem like the biggest priority to a generation that’s consistently shattering glass ceilings on gender lines, and so they, too, were making guys work for it.
But now most girls enter kindergarten expecting to have a career, and suddenly marriage is a priority again. But because chastity isn’t (and because the media’s constantly telling us that the best way to win a man is to fall in love with him), men have it easier than ever before.
They can sleep with a woman without promising to marry her (and without fear of impregnating her). Girls rearrange their schedules to give them blowjobs. Sure, they might want to get married eventually, but marriage doesn’t provide the advantages that it used to.
And so the “rules” for navigating this new world are actually quite simple. And women do need to hear them. They need to do what women have been doing for generations: They need to play hard to get.
While the books Ms. Seligson discusses certainly seem to offer terrible advice, the concept of dating advice for women is far from flawed.
We just need better teachers.
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Art of Meeting Men
Ah, the 80s.
The decade where picking up men was as easy as channeling a 300 pound linebacker in a neon paisley sports jacket (that was a joke about shoulder pads, feel free to laugh).
A reader sent us a Youtube video taken from an 80s self-help movie by a dating coach in a floor-length dress that leaves everything to the imagination.
The outfits might be dated, but the advice withstands the test of time.
For example, if you have trouble meeting men, our data guru suggests carrying around, “a book with an unusual title, a small stuff animal [because nothing turns men on more than women who’ve regressed back to age 4], interesting pieces of jewelry [here she touches her own bland costume pearls], a pet, a sports jersey, a sports magazine, or a t-shirt with a slogan [unclear if you’re supposed to wear the t-shirt or just carry it around].”
A female sidekick with a lesbian vibe comes on to stress the importance of letting a man know that you’re interested. In the opening clip, woman A sits on a bench under a sign pointing people to a Subway (she’s in the city—get it??) with her legs crossed. An overweight man in an argyle sweater approaches the woman and thinks to himself, “Mm! Attractive woman. Just my type.” But then he sees her crossed legs and changes his mind. His interior monologue continues, “She sure looks like a b---” but then he stops himself because Reagan is watching!! “I don’t need that,” he concludes before storming away.
But after hearing the butch guru’s advice, woman A gets a second chance to make things right. She rubs her thighs and thinks, “What do I have to loose at this point? A rerun of Dallas [haha! Because Dallas was still on the air then!] and a pint of ice cream?”
She sits down next to the man (in a new outfit!) with a newspaper and asks, “Is there any good news today?” He tells her that there isn’t, and both sides throw down their newspapers and fall in love/plan to go into business together to start a newspaper that only tells good news (love and an entrepreneurial spirit—aww!!).
Other highlights include our blonde (and possibly Muslim) guru suggesting that you intentionally spill a drink on a man and get his number so that you can pay for his dry cleaning later. “But avoid spilling red wine!” she cautions. “You don’t want him to remember you for the wrong reasons.”
And an angry male guru clad in plaid explaining that men can be very shy. “Research show that 40 percent of men suffer from shyness,” he explains. “And 80 percent of men have been shy at one point in their lives.”
We’ve basically spoiled everything, but it’s still worth watching (and it’s only 3 minutes long).
The decade where picking up men was as easy as channeling a 300 pound linebacker in a neon paisley sports jacket (that was a joke about shoulder pads, feel free to laugh).
A reader sent us a Youtube video taken from an 80s self-help movie by a dating coach in a floor-length dress that leaves everything to the imagination.
The outfits might be dated, but the advice withstands the test of time.
For example, if you have trouble meeting men, our data guru suggests carrying around, “a book with an unusual title, a small stuff animal [because nothing turns men on more than women who’ve regressed back to age 4], interesting pieces of jewelry [here she touches her own bland costume pearls], a pet, a sports jersey, a sports magazine, or a t-shirt with a slogan [unclear if you’re supposed to wear the t-shirt or just carry it around].”
A female sidekick with a lesbian vibe comes on to stress the importance of letting a man know that you’re interested. In the opening clip, woman A sits on a bench under a sign pointing people to a Subway (she’s in the city—get it??) with her legs crossed. An overweight man in an argyle sweater approaches the woman and thinks to himself, “Mm! Attractive woman. Just my type.” But then he sees her crossed legs and changes his mind. His interior monologue continues, “She sure looks like a b---” but then he stops himself because Reagan is watching!! “I don’t need that,” he concludes before storming away.
But after hearing the butch guru’s advice, woman A gets a second chance to make things right. She rubs her thighs and thinks, “What do I have to loose at this point? A rerun of Dallas [haha! Because Dallas was still on the air then!] and a pint of ice cream?”
She sits down next to the man (in a new outfit!) with a newspaper and asks, “Is there any good news today?” He tells her that there isn’t, and both sides throw down their newspapers and fall in love/plan to go into business together to start a newspaper that only tells good news (love and an entrepreneurial spirit—aww!!).
Other highlights include our blonde (and possibly Muslim) guru suggesting that you intentionally spill a drink on a man and get his number so that you can pay for his dry cleaning later. “But avoid spilling red wine!” she cautions. “You don’t want him to remember you for the wrong reasons.”
And an angry male guru clad in plaid explaining that men can be very shy. “Research show that 40 percent of men suffer from shyness,” he explains. “And 80 percent of men have been shy at one point in their lives.”
We’ve basically spoiled everything, but it’s still worth watching (and it’s only 3 minutes long).
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