Rules of San Francisco Dating #1-8

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

	A. Keep a dollar handy at all times.

		i. Plain dollar bills and Sacagawea dollars work best; do not use a Susan B. Anthony, as it looks like a quarter.

		ii. Ze currency foreign works if you have an accent to match.

	B. Locate an attractive smoker. Check out their cigarettes first to make sure they're not something something weird like menthols.

	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."

	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.**

	E. Strike up a conversation. Voila! You have now successfully approached someone who you already know won't be turned off by your smoking.



			* I am told that this only works for girls.
			** I disagree. I think that most girls I know would do the same for a guy.
			I know if it were me, I'd give up the cigarette.


	(If you like these, maybe you'd nominate for Best of Craigslist?)

ID post.:: 28975758