The Young Girl’s Guide to Dating
By Diana Grove
Unfortunately, there comes a time in every girl’s life when she needs to put down childish things, like Barbie, and pick up even more childish things like Mademoiselle Magazine.
Although pouring through women’s magazines seems to be a right of passage for a young girl of dating age, it by no means should be considered a wholesome practice.
On the contrary, the so-called “women’s magazine” is nothing but conversation fodder for knob-kneed Jell-O heads who have nothing better to do than rate double-knits and worry about thigh size. They seduce young girls with their slick photographs and stinky inserts, promising sure-fire tips on how to dress and get dates. The only use I ever had for women’s magazines was to roll them up, start small fires then collect the insurance money.
Young girls can be quite delicate when it comes to acknowledging their sexual awakenings and understanding the complexities of dating. All the more reason to forget professional advice and listen to me!
“Professional advice” can come from parents, teachers and meddling old women in the produce section – it’s rarely worth a pitcher of spit! After all, how many desirable boys does your Home Ec. teacher score in a weekend? Do you see your Dad picking out the right top to win over a fickle soccer player? (If your answer is yes, perhaps you should stop wasting your time reading and try to help him choose a matching skirt and shoes for God’s sake.)
What girls need to do is forget all the fancy hoopla and take the practical approach to dating. First and foremost, a girl needs to figure out if she even wants to date at all. There are plenty of other activities that can kill time between schoolwork and zither practice.
Take knitting for instance. One can become quite proficient in no time and a wide assortment of useful things can be created, like: shawls, bedspreads, TV cozys, and mittens with a built-in secret compartment for braces wax. Cavorting with boys would only extinguish the creative flame.
But, if a girl feels she needs to forge ahead and explore her attraction to the opposite sex, I have some excellent guidelines to follow. All of which are practical, relatively easy to accomplish, and most importantly…cheap.
Before a girl begins the courtship process, she needs to decide what kind of boy she wants to attract (long-haired, short-haired, neutered with current shots.) This is probably the most important aspect of dating and the appropriate “look” and behavior should reel in the perfect match.
We are taught from an early age not to stereotype. We are also taught not to pick our nose. That’s why we are now a generation of congested mouth-breathers that can’t tell the difference between the Son of Sam and the Son of Sam Shepard. One will blow your brains out on the first date; the other will buy you a nifty pair of diamond-encrusted cowboy boots and fly you to Reno for dinner.
Stereotyping men is the only way to be able to attract them with any kind of efficiency. It’s like catching fish; blue gills like earthworms, string rays like chicken livers and sharks like anything served fresh on a rubber raft. You have to bait a man to get his attention, and since only the men I’m attracted to eat worms, you really must know in advance what you can dangle in front of him to get your first nibble.
For example, some girls actually admit they’re attracted to nerds (although, only late at night after they’ve unzipped their crocheted night coat and kissed the photo of Bruno Bettelheim they keep under their rubber mattress.) The best way to attract a nerdy boy is to hang out in the library. And not in the Literature section either. Instead, peruse the “How to Build a Time Machine Out of a Box of Dominos and a Slide Projector” section, and make sure you wear glasses when you do. Find big, black, shiny glasses that are so heavy and ill-fitting they require nose pads to keep them from falling into your copy of Cord and Plug Magazine. Don’t worry if you have perfect vision; just pop the glass out of the frames. Nerdy boys will never notice such a small detail. They are far too busy noodling their solar powered, Popsicle stick turtle motel to care much about your appearance.
This makes dressing for a date as easy as parting your hair with a serving fork. Just wear something brown (good for hiding chemical spills and looking dowdy in general) with a lot of pockets (for storing various nerd equipment i.e.; mechanical pencils, calculators, back-up lunch money.)
Glasses, unflattering clothing and a keen interest in anything that requires airplane glue will undoubtedly land you a first class nerdlinger. After that, it will be a whirlwind of science fairs, chess meets and afternoons spent collecting algae.
However, sometimes the bookish type just doesn’t satisfy and we are forced to crane our little necks in the opposite direction in search of something a bit more hearty.
The outdoorsman is a popular choice, if just for the bold plaids and the extra mosquito repellant. The nice thing about these boys is that they rarely are without a pocketknife. This comes in handy when you encounter a wild boar in the municipal park or are in desperate need to whittle a birch bark canoe when the dam finally bursts.
Also, attracting the outdoorsy type is super easy. Just sew flannel rifle protectors on to all your blouses and rub beef jerky behind your ears. Do, however, be cautious of attracting horseflies and packs of wild dogs (which, incidentally, may be better conversationalists than your garden variety outdoorsman.) If this doesn’t work, seductively stalk, kill, and skin a small, furry animal. This should warm up his thermals in no time.
Most mothers try to persuade their daughters to snag the most coveted of potential mates – the doctor. This is not an easy task or we’d all be sipping a Pim’s Cup at the country club waiting for our manicures to dry.
And, doctors’ are a tricky lot. For one thing, they work from 6:13 AM to 9:42 PM without even taking time out to enjoy a warm milk (served at 92. F with a stirring spoon positioned at exactly 80 degrees from the cup handle.) When they do get time off, it’s straight to the golf course for 18 holes…or 16 holes if they’re paged to perform an emergency separation of Russian Siamese twins (this would be difficult only because the twins would probably be drunk on vodka and throwing Egg Foo Yung.)
Faking an accident may be a good way to gain the attention of a doctor. Shoving raspberry preserves up your nose and blacking out a few teeth is a good start. Although, you may just end up receiving an enema from a surly nurse with overly developed wrist muscles.
So, my suggestion would be to impersonate an anesthesiologist. That is, an anesthesiologist with stilettos and a starched, yet plunging lab coat. When things go horribly wrong, you can then appear vulnerable by crying into your facemask. This will make you seem stressed and in need of a back rub. Just make sure you have plenty of denatured alcohol and tongue depressors at home in case he feels the need to get kinky “doctor-style”(this should last exactly 3 minutes and 43 seconds.)
Athletes aren’t particularly easy to nab either. For one thing, they’re always jumping over things and running away. Unless you have a very reliable car that can beat them to this fabled “finish line,” it all seems quite futile. Plus, a young girl needs to realize that just to sit through the average sporting event one needs to drink large amounts of gin, bourbon, or Phenobarbital.
Naturally, the next group up for discussion would be supermodels. Forget it, these men were too soft to make it into the all-gay, ribbon clerk convention. They would be too embarrassed to hang out with the likes of you anyway. They find girls icky and would prefer to settle down with a nice but sassy full-length mirror.
Lastly, (God forbid) there’s the “artsy” type. Here is a man who stays up ‘till all hours contemplating the subtleties of roof tar in the form of :
1.Daisies
2.Jesus
3.The utter soulessness of Man
4. Roof tar.
This man should be avoided at all cost. He is scrawny, pallid, moody, unpleasant to smell and unable to locate the breaker box. If a girl finds herself blind-dating this man, she should immediately follow these quick and easy steps.
How to Successfully Get Out of a Bad Date
-Hide a “past it’s prime” head of broccoli underneath the car
seat, then apologize profusely for your “gassy bowel
problem.”
-Vomit in his glove compartment. Or, if you’re feeling
modest, just in his glove.
-Laugh nervously and say repeatedly how much you hate
kittens.
-Lick something inappropriate, like a foot stool or a soccer
trophy.
-Run around a lot.
-Tell him you’d really love to put out, but your sores are
unusually oozy this month.
Now lastly, no matter whom you end up dating, you should begin your evening by being fully prepared – this means think practically and pack the perfect gear. Some people would say bring an umbrella, a hankie and change to call a cab. I say to finish off a perfect date, one should have a flashlight, rope and a very sturdy shovel.
