I need to interject a contradictory and seemingly hypocritical rant. Dating rules: love ‘em, hate ‘em, and it is perpetually proven that once I think I have a handle on them they inevitably change or some new circumstance crops up and alters everything yet again. Rules about calling after a date, for instance. God forbid you call a guy before the allotted 24 to 48-hour waiting period has expired. Or, depending on the guy, that you call him period. (Funny how old social mores never really die.) Yet annoying as these random rules are, they are also apparently necessary if one is to date effectively and progress from one date to the next. I refuse to agonize over whether or not a guy is going to call after a date. It’s not worth my time to sit and wonder if he’s interested, if he had as good a time as I did, if he’s not calling because he’s not interested or because he’s intentionally playing it cool. I refuse to miss out on other dating possibilities by waiting for a certain one to contact me (love ya Trish!). If it works out, great. If not, then I have nothing to regret on my end. I’ve been told that this is a cold and heartless way to approach the whole dating process – but isn’t that necessary? Dating is rough on the self-esteem sometimes, and it is often, if not always, practical to have some defenses in place with which to guard yourself. If you’re going to play the game you must be properly equipped. But how can you do that when the rules are unwritten and constantly fluctuating depending on the person and the situation and your level of interest? You have to keep a little distance in the beginning or you’re going to get worked over every time it doesn’t work out, which, let’s be honest, is more often than not.

For instance, I went on a date with a guy a little while ago. We had a fabulous time at a club downtown and a super hot make out session at his place, and then I didn’t hear from him for almost four days. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I know I said I refuse to engage in these waiting games, over-analysis, blah-dee-blah, but I actually like this guy, so not agonizing is way more difficult (hypocrisy? Perhaps…). And then I ran into him randomly in the produce section where he was squeezing a mango. Talk about your awkward situations! And I don’t do awkward. The allotted waiting period hadn’t expired yet and it was clear that he didn’t quite know what to do – did he intend to call after said expiration or not? Unanticipated interaction can often sound the death knell for any nascent, undefined situation. Or it can be great – it jogs the memory of either party into remembering that, “hey, this person is cool and I want to hang out/make out again.” And then there’s the inevitable questioning of what you say when you unexpectedly see that person: “hey I was meaning to call you…” as the voice trails off, he breaks eye contact and frantically looks for a means of escape. Or he doesn’t reference your connection at all and treats the situation as if he’s meeting an old acquaintance, the memory of whom has gone completely stale. Regardless of the details, because we saw each other in that weird limbo waiting period, it threw a kink in our whole process and so prolonged the wait for the next official contact which ended up being longer than I anticipated, which caused my usual cool to become extremely ruffled.

So this time, I obviously wasn’t a fan of the whole dating rule book. But there have been past dating fiascos where it has been vitally necessary. So what’s a girl to do? Inevitably end up drunk with her girlfriends minutely deciphering the actions of each party involved while strategizing the next move either could take and what the counter move should be. Needless to say, this is exhausting. I could suggest that we all just take a far more honest approach and not dick around with these guessing games. And sometimes that works, but you have to know your audience and be willing to accept the fact that the guy could very well - and probably will - freak out. So if total honesty isn’t the best option, then what? You can’t rely on memorizing all the rules because that quickly leads down the road to paranoid neuroticisim. I think the point is that there is no answer - isn’t that part of the reason we keep coming back and engaging in this ridiculous process? It’s the element of the unknown, the adventure, the mystique. There’s something primal and hunter-like about it all. And the payoff can be so good — assuming that after all your pain and mental anguish he has the ability to make your toes curl.