Ponderings.

[patita_fea]

A friend of mine conducted an informal survey for her sociology class the other day, by sending out a mass email asking us for our Ten Rules of Dating. "It's an open-ended question," she wrote. "For instance, maybe one of your rules is 'no drugs' or 'I don't date men I meet in bars.'"

Here's what I wrote back:

The Duckie's Ten Rules of Dating1

Comments

[patita_fea]

True dat. Aren't there a number of aphorisms floating around that go kind of like - "You can tell a man's character by the way he treats people over whom he has power."

The Waiter Rule is widely known. :D

[july_july_july]

HYGIENE. They must have it.

[patita_fea]

Grandma, what ridiculously high standards you have.

[stripedsockscat]

I'd probably only change #4 and #10. I've got visible tattoos so I have no problem with 'em. And #10, I've only got a mom and you don't get to meet her until we're super serious anyway. I'm old so parents don't really come into play until like after a year of dating. Some of that has to do with living 1,000 miles away from mom and only seeing her once a year.

[patita_fea]

Yeah, a few of these are pretty specific to me, for sure. I actually rather like tattoos - one boyfriend had the archangel Michael on his shoulder with the wings spread across his chest and back, and I used to love tracing its outline. But with a shirt on, you'd never know it was there.

As for meeting the parents - not a lot of my boyfriends have, actually. I'm just enough of a daddy's girl that I have to wonder what my father would think.

[suzmc]

Sugar, my girls and my bff have been sittin' here in front of the
TV watching "The Princess and the Frog," and I shared your sage advice. The girls agree to abide and my bff offered her approval since she broke most of these rules with disastrous results and wishes she'd had this handy list years ago.

Spread this wisdom far and wide.

I would add one kinda close to number 6. "If he treats people well who can do nothing for him, he's a keeper."

[patita_fea]

"If he treats people well who can do nothing for him, he's a keeper."

Yes. Yes yes yes yes.

"The Princess and the Frog"! My girlfriends and I had so very much goofy fun watching that in theaters. *smishes it*

[suzmc]

OOO! And here's another, and this is the most important one:

"If everyone who loves YOU says he's not the right one, at least spend a day entertaining the notion that they could be right."

My brother never learned this one.

[patita_fea]

This one, I like. I know exactly how frustrating it is to watch someone you love throw herself into a bad situation against the advice of all the people who know her, love her, and have her best interests at heart.

We're still dealing with the fallout of that one.