Posted by www.nhfcdallas.org at September 29th, 2010

In order to send you out into the singles world, we feel it necessary to lay out a few ground rules in order to maintain your upstanding reputation. Follow these general guidelines in order to ensure both parties, in fact, realize they are on a date and will want to turn the first date in to a second:

  • Show up, this is, by all accounts, the most important step.
  • Feminism may have made major strides over the past several decades. The man still pays, regardless.
  • Women, pretend like you are going to at least think about paying. Men appreciate the gesture; a good faith reach for the purse goes a long way.
  • Official “dates” are scheduled no less than 24 hours in advance. Any sentence beginning with, “Hey, I’m on my way to the” and ending in ” want to come with?” does not qualify as a legitimate date.
  • When you are a date with one person, do not show favoritism or devote more attention to another person (save for scenarios in which you are licensed professional and medical attention must be immediately administered).
  • Past boyfriends and girlfriends should remain in the past.
  • Shower beforehand.
  • See your date through to the end. If, as a man, someone has the courtesy to accompany you out or, as a woman, someone has the courtesy to pay for your meal, cutting the night short at the first potential turn-off is rude (unless, of course, you feel you may be in legitimate danger).
  • White tees are only acceptable at graffiti parties.
  • No t-shirts are acceptable in fine dining situations, no matter how much you paid per rhinestone.
  • Treat women as if they lack opposable thumbs, thus cannot open anything for themselves.
  • If you’re divorce isn’t final, or was just recently thrown out there in a hypothetical situation by your spouse, you are not actually on the market. Go home.