What should one do on one's "First Date" with an unspecified human male?

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There is one thing you must above all do first:

Oh. Bear in mind: you asked me. What I would do is not advice for you! Only if you read it, take it in and agree this is a best course for me, for now. Or: a nifty course to save for later and deploy, potentially with experience-cued variations! Why not?

Life is no film. It goes off-script. This is why it is all the more important (or in your view: unimportant?) that you must both first…

Agree to the following First Date Protocols!!

Easy.

  1. Agree on a time and place, at least one day in the future (this is what makes it a “date,” not a “time”) where both will meet at a movie theater that shows more than one film at a time.
    1. Both commit to separate cars or other means of getting each back home safe after the date.
    2. Both commit to showing up not starving. The time should be daylight: a bargain matinee? Not necessarily, but at the very least we agree we will show up well-breakfasted.
    3. Both commit to sitting through the entire showing. Neither will pressure the other to leave before the credits roll.
    4. Both agree to do all this completely blind, no prior research, and without reference to the films or showtimes. Only the place and time are agreed.

      All this means that the specific movie’s quality or lack thereof is “NO-FAULT” of either party.
  2. Whoever shows up second has to pay for the movie and the refreshments, but there is to be no discussion of “which film”? Both people have to go into the very next film seating at the time the second person shows up and pays!!
    1. NO BALKING. NO SUBSTITUTIONS. No dithering. If you spot the second-comer in the distance, it is okay to “hurry them along” with wordless gestures or an expressive face.
    2. No sneaking into films that have already passed their “start time,” on the grounds that “It’s still running previews!”
  3. AFTER THE FILM: it is the firstcomer’s turn TO PAY. For dinner! Early dinner, late dinner: doesn’t matter. The post-film meal is officially “dinner.”
    1. If both hated the film, then they have preagreed to savage it gleefully together over a cheap-as meal of tacos or cheap Asian cuisine. No “fast food”: dealbreaker if so. The meal should be well-made of fresh, local produce if at all possible. If the film is agreed stinky by both, though: then the two MUST have preagreed on cheap, delicious fare, to be shared together in the same dining-out spot. The better to gleefully savage the film in a mutual celebration of shared taste, duh. Come on!
    2. If response is mixed “both so-so, okay” then burgers or vege burgers it is, or price equivalent. No Fast Food. Fast food opens too many worms per can in terms of fixed, often religious brand loyalty conflicts. Save that for date 2, if any.
    3. If response is LOVE/HATE: one hates what the other loved, then FOUR-STAR EXPENSIVE CUISINE is the agreed-upon truth balm for that rift. Here alone it must go to the hater! For the firstcomer (“the lover”) has preagreed to take “the hater” to the hater’s favorite tippy-top restaurant within walking distance of the theater. Or: within one-car distance of the theater.
      1. No further notes on “transportation logistics.” If you two can’t figure that out on your own, pack it in already: Bad Sign Couple already.

        3.c. will give our couple, who’ve discovered they are grievously different-tasters where filmic virtue concerns, a chance to bond in and over a place one unabashedly loves. Not “reveres.” Applied to a restaurant, that would be a pagan and ultimately superstitious attitude.
    4. If each and both are wonderstruck by the film, enraptured, disbelieving that they’ve by pure chance hit upon a film that will change the coursing of each of their lives forever, the film they can no longer believe they could have gone without seeing—yet chances are they’d neither of them have picked it out of a hat! Well? STEAKHOUSE or FAMILY-STYLE ITALIAN then, or pricing equivalent.
      1. Over dinner: talk politics and religion if you like. You’ve got such great shared-taste and cosmically-miraculous chance workin’ for ya each, right now! Why not push it push it, just a wee tad?

That’s it.

As with the transportation logistics, either you can figure the rest out yourselves or: Bad Sign Couple, kids.

DON’T JUDGE. No hard judgment of the being during the first date.

Save that for after, please.

Meanwhile, during the date?

  • Activate skeptic suspense of judgment, where any hard or harsh judgment of each other concerns. You’d be surprised how well that tactic works in real life, too. In the movie, this is called “suspense of disbelief.” NEVER use “suspense of disbelief” on or with a human being.
    • Use skeptic suspense of judgment, instead. Always.

What is the purpose of these protocols?

Look.

The plan is simple. It’s classic. Not “dinner and a movie.” A movie first! One which neither person can possibly be blamed for! Following the movie, a celebratory meal, regardless of how bad the movie STANK.

The huge stinkeroo film will be a glorious, transcendent chance! It will eject from its artistic wasteland two joyous survivors, equally butt-hurt from the experience, but key distinction: “butt-hurt” by the cosmos only. These two canny film buffs have already preagreed to strip their preconceptions blind, together, over a good meal! Bond over film’s purposes. Bond over its techniques, genres and other business!

Bond over Just What Made That Film Suck So Bad. Giddy! Giddy, giddy glee in the offing, people.

Just hold the idea in your mind. Test each part in mind first, then test each part in part-to-parts relation, building up to a better-understood whole.

It’s rational!

In fact, I’ve just neatly described the process of rationality itself. Try to find a first-date film about that, if you like. Lotsa luck with that, you two. For here is a hard lesson nobody needs to be told. We all know it, from stupid, toxic “up-front” decision models of joint filmgoing, datewise:

  • The movie one picks for two to go in to see almost always ends up being somebody’s fault.
    • These 1st Date Protocols circumvent even the possibility of that, right up front.

It must all be agreed-to beforehand. That’s more than “key,” here. It’s key, keyhole and the wide-swung door. Try it!

Kidding, of course.

  • Only about “It must all be agreed beforehand.” It could also just work out that way. And then,…

…after finding out how well the toss-up crapshoot potluck method turned out, one (sorry: not one: two) could then adopt it going forward as standard “Official Date ‘Nite’” fare.

Date ‘Nite.’ You know how and why that sort of model is adopted by two, in time.

To shake up and reconnect! Whenever both are feeling the need to stake out a Date ‘Nite,’ you know why. Feeling mutually stale, or worse! Unrequitedly stale. Enervated!

On one or both sides, enervated by the seemingly ceaseless grind of personal business (especially small grievances built-up in a slick-stuck accretion of grudge, one that gunks up the free-giving generosity so essential to the process of unition and reunition!), drawing both or each ever onward towards an inevitable temptation: to chuck it up! Why not, at that point? “Chuck it up,” and take full advantage of the endless tempting concessions available at many fine movie theaters!

Well? Why not?

None of this dinner first, “then” a movie.

What if dinner sucks? What will you talk about during the movie? Nah, naw: movie first. Using these protocols developed exclusively for a slam dunk No-Fault Movie & A Dinner date experience, naturally!

My secret? That’s how I came up with the protocols in the first place.

Works. Works literally every time.

Works for what?

Works to develop an early (or fresh) idea of: Just how well-suited are we, to each other, for this one day’s edutainment and recreation. Works. Clear signs are GO.

OH, PLEASE.

Consider yourself free to print out hard copy of the Protocols and slip it into an envelope. Please do. So you’re ready.

Then, if anyone asks you out, you could slip the sealed envelope to them, marked:

  • “Non-Negotiable First Date Protocols, Mark IV.B. Copyright Some Random Asswhole Online.”

I wouldn’t mind if you did.

If they mind the envelope gesture, or refuse to mind The Protocols?

Bad sign, babe. Bad news move—on their part, natch. Your counter? Well, you can rest easy knowing you won’t have to move on “their part.” Easy!

For the moment, though? One simple response that works?

  1. Simply narrow your eyes with steady eye-to-eye unbroken contact and say in a low, even, dulcet tone:

    “Red Flag.”
  2. Next? After a pause far too short for them to recollect or object, continue (same vocal tone, same level gaze):

“Dealbreaker.”

Deadpan delivery is core.

Breaking into a wide, gleeful grin?

Priceless, that is if both do. Or if one laughs like bells at the others’ panache in so doing. So many ways to work, but never, never will this method work without full preagreement up-front, fully-voluntary and mutual from each side: To Mind The Protocols.

The End

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