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1. Have an excellent apartment.
- If you are male, your success rate with bedding partners of either
sex is greatly enhanced by the relaxation brought on by vintage crown
moulding, hardwood floors and blown-glass art lamps. Even if you have to
get a smaller apartment, make it one that has a few interesting and
unique touches to it.
- If you are straight, your male friends will understand that it's
just for show. We're all comfortable with our metrosexuality, aren't we?
- If you are a straight female, however, it is intimidating to males
if you have an overly prissy excellent apartment. Throw some clothes
around and make him feel at home. Hang some stockings and lingerie from
clotheslines in the rafters, give him something to look at.
- If you are a lesbian, you should keep a pristine house, complete
with dog and U-haul for the second date.
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2. Play games, but say you don't.
- Everyone plays games. If you say you're not playing a game,
you're playing a game.
- If two people are truly not playing games, they won't ever
truly believe that the other is not playing games. Therefore, you
might as well play games, no matter how pure and non-playa your
heart is, because you'll catch hell for it one way or the other.
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3. Live near a BART station.
- If the directions you give your date to get to your place involve
more than 30 minutes on any MUNI line, your chances of getting a second
date are immediately halved. This is a scientific fact.
- If your house is not easily accessible by public transport, do not
date someone from the East Bay. Heartbreak and lonely evenings can only
follow.
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4. Time your post-date phone calls using this handy
formula.
Within three days of a first
date:
A.
One or the other dater must initiate a call.
i.
This is the responsibility of both people on the date.
ii.
Not just the guy.
iii.
If a woman waits at least 24 hours before initiating a call, she is 85%
less likely to be considered desperate.
iv.
If no call is made by either party, no harm, no foul. All parties move
along.
B.
Upon receiving this phone call, the clock begins.
i.
It is now the responsibility of the person who did not initiate the first
call to make the second contact.
ii.
This may be by telephone or by email.
C.
Henceforth, all calls should occur at a rate somewhere between the first
two call intervals.
i.
The tone of a relationship is set within the first few weeks.
ii.
The response time of the first two calls is statistically the ideal
"space" that each person in a couple needs.
D.
Never should one leave more than two messages without waiting for a
callback.
i.
And usually only one message, two is usually too much.
ii.
If they want to talk, they'll call you. They have your number.
iii.
Persistent phone calling never helps. Ever.
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5. This may sound like an obvious one, but Google your date in advance.
A. Google your
date.
i. Concerned
about privacy? In this technologically-oriented city, if you make yourself
or your ID available online, you're going to get Googled.
Sorry.
ii. If someone
posts/writes/blogs something that's important enough to them to put their
name to it online, it's likely something that they want the world to know
about.
iii. This is
not to specifically uncover anything unsavory - perhaps they write an
online journal or have written a feature article that indicates their
interests.
iv. See!
Now you already have something to talk about in
advance.
v. Never,
under any circumstances, reveal before the third date that you had googled
them.
vi. Similarly,
don't make it too obvious that you studied up. That's just
creepy.
B. Google
yourself.
i. Be
sure to google yourself to make sure you're not being unfairly portrayed
online. They're going to google you anyway, you might as well check it
out.
ii. If you see a
posting that you feel is unfair, counteract it with your own
posting.
C. Some handy
searches:
i. Full
email address.
ii.
Username. Just the part before @whateverdomain.com. Often same as username
for online
service.
iii. First or
last name, if unique, and city.
iv. Last name and
two-letter state. Google will often return an address with this
combination. Do not use this information for
evil.
v. Online
services such as Friendster.
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| 6. Know your way around a Japanese restaurant.
Japanese food is the common denominator of San Francisco dining.
A. Familarity with Japanese restaurants
separates the Midwesterners from the Californians.
i.
Exactly 178 Japanese restaurants lie in the area between the Rockies and
the Appalachians.
ii.
If you are from the Midwest, you have likely never eaten in a Japanese
restaurant. This will stick out like the proverbial sore
thumb.
B. Some tips for first-timers:
i. If you're not
sure what to order, just get a bento box. You'll want some of the trays
they serve it in for yourself at home. I wonder if they use these as
school lunch trays in Japan - wouldn't that be
cool?.
ii. The soup you
are brought at the first of the meal will, in 96% of cases, be miso
soup.
a.
This is a soup made of fermented soy paste and tofu, usually garnished
with
scallions.
b.
The soy paste separates from the soup between the kitchen and your table;
stir it with a chopstick before sipping.
iii. Learn to use
chopsticks for more than stirring
soup.
a.
You can hone your chopstick skills in advance in the privacy of your local
Chinese restaurant. Work your way up to picking up egg rolls with your
chopsticks and you should be able to handle any sushi
roll.
b.
Include a salad (usually with a sesame or peanut wasabi based dressing) in
your meal so it'll be perfectly okay to get both chopsticks and a fork,
just in case.
C. Learn to eat raw fish.
i.
Sashimi is raw fish. Tuna is popular; try Maguro, or Toro (fatty tuna).
Other good ones include salmon, yellowtail and prawn.
ii. More flavorful
rolls include spicy tuna and California
roll.
iii. Try the
condiments out and find the ones you like to help cover the taste/lack of
taste.
a.
Fear not the wasabi - just use it in small quantities. Stir some up with
soy sauce in that teensy dish they give you.
b.
There is debate as to the purpose of the ginger slices. Some say that they
are merely for cleansing the palate before consuming more sushi. Some
place the slices directly on their sushi. This is a total rookie move.
D. Um, no, I just can't do it.
i.
Japanese restaurants have many sushi alternatives for those who just can't
handle the raw
fish.
a.
Tempura is the fried chicken of Japanese restaurants; try the
shrimp.
ii. Order like
a vegetarian.
a.
If you like the green stuff avocado rolls are yummy - seaweed wrapped
around avocado and sticky
rice.
b.
Try the edamame - crisp, steamed soybeans. Eat the beans out of the pods.
c.
Actually, feigning vegetarianism is a good way to avoid the issue
altogether.
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7. Perfect your booty call. This is very important, kids, so listen up.
A. People gotta have sex. There's nothing wrong with that.
B. In this day and age, it pays to have a person you know you can count on.
i. You're not always going to be in a relationship.
ii. 78% of the single population say they would like to have a regular booty call to augment the times when they're not in a relationship. This provides for many booty call opportunities.
C. The method of approach to booty call depends, of course, on your current relationship to the intended.
i. If a lover, the booty call is very easy.
ii. If this is a friend with benefits (hereafter, 'friend'), the booty call is usually easy, but you deal with a different set of moods.
iii. If this is a person you know who you'd like to call for a FWB, it is tricky, but possible if you are smart about it.
D. Sucking Up, then Sucking It Up and Making The Move.
i. If you are calling a lover, you have an advantage as you likely know the person well, and know their desires. If you have a common interest in, say, a favorite food, or a DVD you've been wanting to see, invite them over to share it. Make it a bonding experience. They eat that stuff up.
ii. If calling your friend, it depends on if they're a regular FWB or a non-regular (defined as two or fewer times over a six-month period)
a. If a regular, come up with as many sly references as possible. Refer to size ("Huge!") or position ("Good doggy!"). Develop a sexy gaze by casting the sexy gaze just before you hook up, instilling a pavlovian response in him for later.
b. If an occasional hook-up: this is trickier than a regular hook-up, which has incumbent benefits, as it depends on the mood of your hook-up. To maintain good will, call them or contact them in a non-hookup way at least once between hookups. For the actual hookup, it may help in getting them in the mood to re-create the original set-up as much as possible. Suggest meeting at the same restaurant, semi-innocuously, and make references to the previous outing.
iii. If a potential hook-up, be cool. Invite them over to your place to watch a movie (pick one you've talked about - always discuss at least one movie ahead of time with every potential hook-up) and get some pizza. Be casual - actually, do some jumping jacks, run in place for a while, get yourself all loosened up before calling - and use words like "just" and "wanna".
E. Turning a booty call into a relationship.
i. Ah, one of the most frequently asked questions. How to turn a booty call into a relationship?
ii. Answer: Be cool.
a. If you are a gay male, look at the catalogs in his bathroom and see if there's anything circled. You know what to do.
b. If you are a straight woman, make no motions toward a further relationship until he gets to know you better. Figure out if you have anything in common, and just bring it up in conversation. See if you get along. But whatever you do, be chill.
c. If you are a lesbian, you should...hey! you know good and well that this is redundant. Stop wasting my time and go have fun being all free and sex-positive and everything! :)
d. If you are a straight male, it all depends on the level of interest of the girl. Basically, do the same thing as in E(ii)b.
F. The first rule of booty call: always, always, keep it on the down low.
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| 8. Smoke for free and meet people who share your
interests. With this method, you will both smoke for free* and meet
people for whom smoking is not a problem. |
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A. Keep a dollar handy at all times. |
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i. Plain dollar bills and Sacagawea dollars work best;
do not use a Susan B. Anthony, as it looks like a quarter. |
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ii. Ze currency foreign works if you have an accent to
match. |
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B. Locate an attractive smoker. Check out their
cigarettes first to make sure they're not something something weird
like menthols. |
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C. Smile and say, "I don't want to buy another whole
pack of smokes, but I will pay you a dollar for a cigarette." |
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D. No self-respecting smoker would take a dollar for a
cigarette; in a recent study, 93.9% of the cigarette smokers gave
the cigarette and did not take the dollar.** |
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E. Strike up a conversation. Voila! You have now
successfully approached someone who you already know won't be turned
off by your smoking. |
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* I am told that this only
works for girls. |
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** I disagree. I think that most
girls I know would do the same for a guy. |
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I know
if it were me, I'd give up the cigarette. |
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(If you like these, maybe you'd nominate
for Best of Craigslist?) |
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