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Three Dating Myths Debunked

Three Dating Myths Debunked

There are a lot of things we’re told in our lives regarding how to attract a guy, more specifically, how to make one your boyfriend. Hide your crazy as long as possible. Be low-maintenance. Win his friends over. Never try to compliment him on the size of his balls, because no matter what you say, it will come out as an insult. It’s so hard to keep it all straight. I’ve been consistently lying about my age, waiting 17 minutes to respond to a first text message, and ritualistically avoiding intercourse with men I’m interested in for ages, and it’s gotten me no closer to locking one down. It’s almost as if the advice we’re given, seemingly constantly, is not only contradictory, but completely bogus. These three dating “tips” I’m willing to proclaim from this point forward as total mythology.

“You Just Know”

Bullshit. You know how many times I have “just known” that I was going to marry a guy. Six. SIX. On SIX separate occasions I “just knew” that I had found the one. Granted, like three of them were before my sixteenth birthday, but the rest had real potential. Of those six, guess how many times I was right. That’s correct, ladies and gentlemen, I have never been correct in this certain knowledge that other idiots, romantic comedies, and vodka told me I had. I think that it’s certainly possible to know whether or not you have chemistry with a guy, but you do not know which one you’re going to marry upon meeting him. It’s easy, retrospectively, to romanticize the nature of things in your head, claiming that it was different from the moment you met, then all the other times you thought it was going to work out, but realistically, the only difference in this case is that it did work out, not how you felt in the beginning.

A friend of mine had started dating a guy she really liked about a year ago, and pulled me aside one night to express her true feelings for him:

“Veronica,” she said, “I know I haven’t been seeing him for very long, but I’m going to marry this guy. I know it. Is it weird that I just want to go on the record telling you that, so when we’re married, I have proof that I knew it all along?”

They broke up a week later. You don’t “just know” shit. Lovey dovey couples filling your head with malarkey like this are the reason girls get hooked on guys they like who save their contact info as “Big Tits Amber.”

“It Happens When You’re Not Looking.”

Again, wrong. It happens for some people when they’re not looking. Others look very hard when love finds them. I’d been “not looking” for three years before I decided it was time for me to maybe try to meet someone. In those three years, not once did “it happen.” It didn’t even come close to happening. Sure, when I wasn’t trying to, in those years, I occasionally caught feelings for someone, but a relationship didn’t spontaneously form just because I wasn’t necessarily ready to be on the market for one. Believe it or not, guys don’t really have a sixth sense telling them exactly what you want from them, enabling them to do the opposite. They really just are that stupid.

Conversely, I have friends who have been in constant pursuit of boyfriends, dated very frequently in hopes of finding one, and very purposefully done and said the exact right things. You know where they are now? In relationships.

“Make Him Wait.”

My favorite, because girls, and even some guys, believe that this really is a rule until they find themselves in a situation where the rules seem not to matter. I’m going to say this one time, so listen closely: THERE IS NO MAGIC AMOUNT OF TIME TO PROLONG INTERCOURSE THAT WILL MAKE HIM BE YOUR BOYFRIEND. I have friends who are fixing to move in with their boyfs after should-have-been one-night stands, and I have made guys wait months, explaining they couldn’t go to Poundtown if we weren’t official, yet single I remained. While I don’t think, in most cases, a guy is going to wife up the random girl he brings home from the bar, I also don’t think most guys think to themselves, Damn. She was the girl of my DREAMS, but she had sex with me after two weeks, instead of waiting until the fifth proper date. Guess that’s done with. Like. No. If a guy likes you enough, he will want to date you. End of story. If he doesn’t want to date you, it’s because he didn’t like you enough. It’s not because you made out too hard after date one, and it’s not because you waited too long to give it up. It doesn’t take long for him to decide whether or not he sees long-term potential, but once that decision is made, when you sleep with him probably isn’t going to be the detail that changes his mind.

So, I say, don’t listen to the advice happy couples give you regarding what worked for them, because chances are, it’s wrong. You are not them, and their advice is generally all convoluted and embellished by their rose-colored glasses anyway. Ya hear? Happy people are not to be trusted. With that said, fuck on the first date if you want to, or the fifteenth if you’d rather do that. Look for love or don’t, and stop assuming just because you “feel a spark” it means you’re going to get married. You’ll find love when you’re meant to, not a moment before, and not a moment after, and no amount of bitching will change that. Take it from me.

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Veronica Ruckh

Veronica (@VeronicaRuckh) is the Director of Total Sorority Move for Grandex, Inc. After having spent her undergraduate years drinking $4 double LITs on a patio and drunk texting away potential suitors, she managed to graduate with an impressive GPA and an unimpressive engagement ring -- so unimpressive, in fact, some might say it's not there at all. Veronica has since been fulfilling her duties as "America's big," a title she gave to herself with the help of her giant ego. She has recently switched from vodka to wine on weekdays. Email her at [email protected]

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