RELATIONSHIP ADVICE: THE DATE

Recently another person asked me for advice on dating. Seeing as by his shallow and barely post-teenage standards I am impossibly ancient and therefore must have a wealth of experience and folklore stored up, he felt that perhaps he could benefit from shaking my tree.
Let's see if any over-ripe fruit falls.
The old fart may know something.

He was somewhat squiffy at the time -- which explains his freedom in broaching the subject -- and I was cold sober, as I often am. I should also clarify that a twenty-two year old is not nearly mature enough to deal with the feminine sex in any way at all, and that a fifty-three year old man is not impossibly ancient. Not even close.


THE FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE

I went out on my first date when I was in college. We smooched and drank beer after a meeting of the student council. That was it.

A perky red-head thanked me ever so prettily for lunch, and went home to Boston the next day. I have no idea what happened to her.
She was very engaging. I wish she had written back.

We shall not speak of the gun-nut in Berkeley. She was a fine woman, liked the occasional cigar, and drank Old Grand-Dad.
She later married a lawyer.

A few years after that a cheeky blonde insisted that we go eat at a vegetarian restaurant. I do not remember her name at all, but I have never forgotten how ghastly the food was. In the same year I took a Philippina to a screening of Bananas by Woody Allen. That was a mistake. Philippinas have no sense of humour.
Both women were fascinating on the surface, but dull deep down. Had they been interesting all the way to the bone, I would have desperately wanted to be around them despite the odd flaw.

After I had moved to San Francisco, I dated a lovely blonde from Marin County. She informed a coworker that I was "weird", and nothing came of it.

There was an insane person who stalked me for a few weeks.
But that doesn't count.

A very sweet waitress proved so mentally unbalanced that I have not been to the restaurant where she worked since. The food was very good, and I miss it intensely. But her moody deep-seated bat-shit craziness made associating with her, for the mere three dates our relationship lasted, tortuous, painful, and seemingly everlasting.

A very nice nurse went out for hot chocolate with me a couple of times. I'm not a doctor, which proved a stumbling block.

Savage Kitten and I often ended up at a coffee shop on Geary Street sharing pie and hot beverages. We saw movies, visited museums, and regularly went to see the reptiles and amphibians at the California Academy of Sciences. For the two decades that we were together we also ate out frequently. I suppose you could call those dates. Couples should above all feel good enough about each other that they dare to be ravenous together.

But that was then.


Since becoming single again three years ago, there have not been any dates.


"What do you want to do?"


So I really can't help you, kid. I don't know what people do on dates any more. I believe that they take designer drugs and have clumsy physical congress in the bathrooms of clubs south of Market Street.
Or go to fashionable restaurants where she can show off her handbag and boob job, and he can flirt with the busboys. Heck, for all I know they spend hours and hours yacking at each other about their work and how their parents traumatized them as children.
Imported beers and flavoured vodkas are essential to the process.
So are business cards, spirituality, and tofu.
As well as extremely loud music.


THE FIRST DATE

Judging by the experts on the internet, volunteering in a soup kitchen, hiking in the Himalayas, and sky-diving are quite perfect things to do, as are rafting down the Amazon, setting up a neighborhood recycling centre in a poor community, shooting the rapids on the wildest river in America, and going to a tattoo parlour for matching tats.
Tea and cookies just don't cut it anymore.

Seriously, kid, go bother someone else.
I haven't a clue.

Have you considered reading a book?
Perhaps "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Sex", or "The Other Gender for Dummies"?


Instead of getting drunk over cigars and expensive single malt, and bothering an avuncular stranger who is old enough to be terminally unenlightened, maybe you should simply ask the young lady herself what she would like to do.

A very good start would be the following phrase:
"What do you want to do?"
It might work.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================