GiMpY-wAnNaBe
05-07-2004, 11:41 PM
a friend of mine started this thing, i myself wrote chapter 7
The Guide to Dating in High School
(a work-in-progress)
Authors/Contributors so far: 3
Hello.
If you’re reading this, then you must be a high school student looking for help with your love life. While we can’t guarantee you’ll find anything useful in here, we’ll be very surprised if you don’t. Some people think dating in high school is pointless, since most couples end up getting split up at graduation anyway. Others say that high school dating is just about getting experience for later on in life. Whatever point of view you may have on the subject, you’ll probably agree that high school is a lot more bearable when you’ve got that date on Friday night to look forward to, or if the two of you are going to sneak back to your house at lunch. This guide is here to help you achieve that. If you want to contribute to this, send an e-mail with “Dating Guide” in the subject line to morons_with_cameras@yahoo.ca. Anyways, let’s get started…
How to use this Guide: While this guide is meant to be able to help anyone, regardless of sexual preference, many of these are written from a “guy seeking girl” perspective. If a submission will probably only work from the girl’s perspective, it’ll be marked with a & at the start of the line. If it’s universal, it’ll be blank. A @ means it’ll likely only work from the guy’s perspective. If it’s intended for a “(blank) seeking same” situation, there will also be a % at the start of the line. (So a tip for a girl to get a girl on a date would have a %& at the head of the line;) Also, submissions are put in as they were originally typed, so if it’s worded as a guy seeking guy situation, but it’s blank, assume it’ll work universally.
And of course, a lot of this depends on the two people involved. I mean, a hardcore goth girl may not be as impressed by flowers as a cheerleader may be.
One: Making Your Move No sense in worrying about keeping a date until you can actually get one.
Two: Types of People There’s all kinds of people in high school. Here’s how to spot them.
Three: Do’s and Don’ts DO be nice to your boy/girlfriend. DON’T make out with them in front of their parents.
Four: Spotting a Date “It’s not a date, it’s just two people meeting for dinner and a movie!” Bull****.
Five: Rejection When all else fails, we have our old friends Anger, Bitterness, and Drinking.
Six: Parental Interference It’s a bad sign when even your parents want to keep you out of the breeding pool. But it happens.
Seven: Don’t be Desperate Just because you haven’t “gotten any” lately doesn’t mean you’ll settle for a particularly good looking sadistic horse.
Eight: Date Conversation Okay, you’ve got a date. Now what do you talk about?
Chapter One: Making Your Move.
Guys, we’ve all been there. You’ve met this really great-looking girl, or maybe in class you get paired up with someone who makes you laugh, or you start to notice something about a friend you’ve had for years, whatever. The important thing is, you feel like you need to do something or you’re gonna explode. But how? There are many ways to get her on a date with you, some of them sneaky and almost needlessly complicated, but most of them will work.
One such strategy is the “Sneak Date”, usually involving a movie. The setup is this: Ask the girl if she wants to come to a movie, and lie that there are gonna be a bunch of people there. If you mention anyone specifically, make sure they’re in on this, and willing to help, just in case she asks one of them “Hey, looking forward to the movie?” If she says yes, arrange cover stories with the people you “invited” so that there are no slip-ups, show up at the movie alone, and wait for her. When she shows up, get the tickets, and when she eventually asks where everyone else is, tell her that they all cancelled. Then, if the two of you manage to survive being alone together for the course of the movie (and can still stand each other), ask her if she wants to “do this again sometime?” And hopefully, you’ll be able to arrange a second date.
Then again, there’s always the option of just telling her how you feel. Simple, to the point. Doesn’t have to be face-to-face, that can be embarrassing, but it may score you points. E-mail or phone works too. Just a simple “I like you, and I was wondering if you wanna see a movie sometime,” or “I think you’re very attractive, how about a date?” Nothing flashy necessary here.
Chapter Two: Types of People.
Obviously, there are many kinds of people in high school, and it sometimes seems like just as you get everyone figured out, someone new pops up. Fear not, that’s why this Guide is here. The following is a list of commonly encountered types of high school students:
Carbonated People: You know those girls who are cute to look at, but generally dumb as an empty can? They are the queens of the carbonated people. They’re called carbonated people because they’re nice to look at (like a colourful pop can), don’t have a lot of substance, they’re so sweet they make your teeth rot, and they’re very irritating in large doses. Typically, carbonated people are girls who keep elementary-school fascinations with the traditional “girly” colours (pinks and purples, mostly), cartoon characters, stuffed animals, and in extreme cases, *shudder*, boy bands. Often prone to giggling fits, and many would become cheerleaders, given the chance. However, it is possible to find a carbonated person who gets very high marks. It’s rare, but it happens.
Jocks: Usually big. Usually dumb. Usually irritable. Usually going after carbonated people or slutty people. Although there have been rumours and even sightings of small, intelligent, docile jocks who have a thing for intelligent people (They hang out with Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa in the off-season). Not a lot to say about jocks, they do tend to live up to the stereotypes, although there are exceptions. Guys on sports teams are more likely to turn into jocks then girls are, for some reason. Probably something to do with evolution, but who cares about that right now? Note that not everyone who joins a sports team is a jock, and not all jocks are on sports teams. Some are simply obsessed with sports, but can’t seem to play any.
Sports Buffs (or Junior Jocks):
Chameleons: You know who the chameleons are. They’re the people who get so insecure about their self-image that they feel the need to change themselves periodically, usually every few months. Don’t get chameleons mixed up with posers, although some of them do hit that phase. Very rarely does a first semester niner become a chameleon, and almost as rare is a grade twelve who suddenly becomes a chameleon; it usually happens somewhere in between, when people are still trying to find a place in high school. Sometimes, it can be triggered by a particularly bad breakup, although simple curiosity can be a cause. It could also be seen as an attempt to get dates from outside the person’s original social circle (for example, someone tries to go Punk to get girls, then tries Goth when that doesn’t work, and so on). Oddly enough, chameleons can sometimes keep the same friends throughout their strange little cycles.
Posers: They think they’re the hottest **** on two legs. They aren’t. They look like the bastard children of Eminem and Vanilla Ice. I can barely even bring myself to describe them, so I’ll meet you halfway: Think Jamie Kennedy in Malibu’s Most Wanted, only watered down slightly. Posers aren’t limited to white boy rappers either. Every semi-popular cultural group has at least 3 white kids (girls too, not just guys) imitating them and making asses of themselves. There’s not much else to say about them, except that they may very well be the real reason napalm was invented.
The Band Geeks: Before I start this one, let me first say I don’t mean Geek in a bad way. Band Geek just sounds funnier then Band Person. Anyways, band geeks are basically anyone who is in the high school band, and tells music-related jokes to their non-band friends (perfect example: “How do you tell when there’s a drummer at the door? The knocking speeds up.”). Typically nice enough people, and they vary from the casual band geek, who wouldn’t even be considered a geek if they didn’t make jokes like the one above, or if they couldn’t actually tell you the difference between a “tromboner” and a “trombonist”, to the rabid band geek who practices their instrument constantly during lunch. Band geeks can even branch out into other social circles, i.e. a carbonated band geek, and tend to blend in with these people easily. A good way to tell if your friend is a band geek is if they are on a first-name basis with any music teacher in the school. And by high school band, I mean the actual band that the school sends to band contests and such, not outside bands that some kids started on their own.
Chapter Three: Do’s and Don’ts.
Okay, so you’ve managed to get them on a date with you. Maybe even several. Maybe the two of you have been going out for a long time, and you’re just reading this to freshen up on your do’s and don’ts! Well, you’ve come to the right chapter. Following are common strategies to keep a relationship going, and tips to keep it from collapsing.
One at a time: Trying to go out with multiple people who all think you’re only going out with them is never a good idea. The guy who wrote Murphy’s Law wasn’t just pessimistic, he was downright sadistic. Situations like this tend to come back and bite those involved square on the ass. Leave juggling to the professionals.
Don’t piss off her folks: This is just common sense. Don’t make an idiot of yourself in front of your boy/girlfriend’s parents. Brothers and sisters are usually safer, but watch out for any tattletale siblings who like to check on the two of you every few minutes.
Possessive = Bad: Most people don’t like being treated like property. Again, common sense.
Test the water before you go swimming: You know how it is: you’re at a party with your date, the two of you go into the make-out closet, and after a few minutes you think you could try something. Don’t just jump right in; test it first. For example, if you’re trying to get your date to make out with you for the first time, kiss them normally, then just open your mouth a bit and see if they respond. Or if you want to know if you can feel their butt without getting slapped, just work your hands downward until your date pushes them back up. Simple.
Don’t rush things: Everyone’s heard “Don’t kiss on the first date”. Some people, however, take it too literally and try to make a move on date #2. Take it slow, or else the other person may get creeped out and leave. There’s no definite “schedule” for when to try certain things, but a good rule of thumb is test the waters every three months or so. Also, NEVER use the F-word in high school; telling your boy/girlfriend you want to be with them forever will usually creep them out and produce the opposite result.
Clingy = Bad: While fanatical devotion to your boy/girlfriend may seem sweet, it doesn’t do any good. It makes you look like an idiot, and it makes them uncomfortable. Clingy and in love are very different things, too. A person who’s in love may think about the other person all the time, but for the most part keeps it to themselves until they’re alone with their boy/girlfriend. A clingy person thinks out loud about their boy/girlfriend, constantly, will flat-out run towards the other person if they so much as see them leave class to get a drink, and often refuses to believe it when the other person dumps them, and will continue to try and act like a boy/girlfriend towards this person for quite some time. More on this in Chapter 7. If your boy/girlfriend starts to act clingy, let them know, and tell them to ease off. If they don’t, dump them. It’s for their own good, and yours.
Chapter Four: Spotting a Date.
Alas, some people can’t spot a date coming a mile away. “Oh, he would never try anything. This dinner and a movie with just the two of us isn’t a date at all.” Bull****. If the other person is into people like you, and you’re into people like them (i.e., a straight girl and a straight guy), odds are, something involving only the two of you is a date. Here are a few ways to tell if you’ve just been asked out on a date, or walked into one:
• Dinner and a movie; date.
• Lunch and a matinee; not date.
• Walk through the park at noon; not date.
• Picnic in the park at noon; date.
• Anything involving candles; date (or ritual).
• Going to the mall with the purpose of buying something; not date (unless they buy it for you).
• Going to the mall just because; date.
Chapter Five: Rejection.
Hey, it happens to the best of us. “I’m sorry, I like you as just a friend,” “I don’t really ‘date’, you know?” “You’re not my type.” Rejection is simply a fact of life when it comes to dating. The trick is how you deal with it. Crying yourself to sleep for a few nights, wearing only black for a week, making and burning little paper dolls of the guy who asked her out just before you were going to, there are many things you can do. Here are a few strategies that usually help:
Beat something: Fairly straightforward, just find a punching bag or one of those human-sized pillows, then try to beat it beyond recognition. This serves the dual purpose of venting your anger, and making you more tired so that you can fall asleep easier.
Write: Writing is surprisingly helpful in a situation like this. And you can do just about anything with it: write depressing/angry poems, write songs to either cheer you up or depress other people, even write a story with a character who keeps getting their heart broken, and name it after the person you tried to ask out. That last one is actually fairly fun. If writing isn’t your style, you could draw, too.
Avoid the other person like the plague: The theory behind this one is: Outta sight, outta mind. Although you may need to work a little harder at this one then the others, it will work, given enough time. The only drawback to it is if the person you’re avoiding has a lot of the same friends you do, then you pretty much end up avoiding your own friends for three weeks or so.
Also, don’t be a jackass if you’re the one rejecting someone else. Don’t feed them any bull**** (unless you’re feeling particularly cruel), just tell them No. Make sure they can hear you, otherwise they’ll think you said something else and that they still have a chance.
Chapter Six: Parental Interference.
Sometimes, no matter what you do, your boy/girlfriend’s parents just do not like you. Or maybe your parents don’t like your boy/girlfriend. Maybe it’s a cultural thing (for example, someone with hardcore Muslim parents dating someone with hardcore Jewish parents). Maybe one set of parents or the other doesn’t want their baby to date. Never fear, the Guide is here! There are ways around these parental roadblocks:
Set up a code: Let’s say that neither set of parents like what’s going on. This can make phone conversation difficult. So, set up a code with your boy/girlfriend, so that to any parental eavesdroppers, it’ll sound like you’re talking about school. For example, “math quiz” could be code for movie, “physics project” for a party, “computer science test” if you just want to meet at the park and make out, and so on. Of course, you’d need another code word for “Really, it’s school-related” if you were actually trying to talk about the math quiz on Friday.
Underground Bus Line: Like the Underground Railroad, but a lot smaller. Just get a bunch of friends whose houses you can go to to meet your boy/girlfriend, then go places from there. Also good for if your parents don’t want you to go to a party: tell them you’ll be studying at Bill’s house, but get a ride with Bill to the party instead. It’s easier to beg forgiveness then ask permission. You’ll need to change the names occasionally, though, and make sure that at least some of these friends live close enough to walk to, but not close enough to see from your house.
Lie: I’m surprised more people don’t think of this one. If your parents are hardcore religious people who don’t want you to date, tell them you’re going off to whatever place of worship your religion has with a bunch of friends of the same gender. Then just leave to go on a date!
Above all, never dump someone just because your parents tell you to!
Chapter Seven: Don’t be desperate
Have you ever seen a guy that has been clinging to EVERY DAMN GIRL he sees? He has what I like to call stupid-sad-dumb-ass-who-can’t-figure-out-that-that-doesn’t-work syndrome, it’s a technical term. Guys (and girls), either things happen, or things don’t, and unless you’re actually a really good player (in which case you wouldn’t be reading this), you don’t try to go after random girls.
The key thing to see is that just because a girl is being nice to you, it doesn’t mean that she will date you. You have to prove you’re a nice guy and stuff in order to let HER choose you. The willingness to date has to go both ways, and if you want her to feel the same way about you, you have to do something in order for that to happen.
Now, let’s say that everyone one around you is dating, and getting some, and all of a sudden there is this girl that likes you too. Don’t just say yes right off the bat, unless you know who she is and feel comfortable with her. As much as people say that high school dating is pointless, it isn’t, it’s for experience, and although we all make mistakes, it doesn’t mean we should be idiots about it and make them on purpose.
Chapter Eight: Date Conversation.
You’ve actually managed to get a date with that someone you’ve had your eye on. Now the problem is, what do the two of you talk about?
Show some interest: You’d be surprised how well this works. Ask the other person about their hobbies, job, favourite music, pets, whatever. It usually leads to funny stories, and it helps you get to know the person better. Just watch out for topics like ex-boy/girlfriends, and you should be fine.
Common ground: If you’re going out with someone you’ve already known for a while, this is easy. Try to talk about things you have in common, stuff you both like, people you both can’t stand.
The Guide to Dating in High School
(a work-in-progress)
Authors/Contributors so far: 3
Hello.
If you’re reading this, then you must be a high school student looking for help with your love life. While we can’t guarantee you’ll find anything useful in here, we’ll be very surprised if you don’t. Some people think dating in high school is pointless, since most couples end up getting split up at graduation anyway. Others say that high school dating is just about getting experience for later on in life. Whatever point of view you may have on the subject, you’ll probably agree that high school is a lot more bearable when you’ve got that date on Friday night to look forward to, or if the two of you are going to sneak back to your house at lunch. This guide is here to help you achieve that. If you want to contribute to this, send an e-mail with “Dating Guide” in the subject line to morons_with_cameras@yahoo.ca. Anyways, let’s get started…
How to use this Guide: While this guide is meant to be able to help anyone, regardless of sexual preference, many of these are written from a “guy seeking girl” perspective. If a submission will probably only work from the girl’s perspective, it’ll be marked with a & at the start of the line. If it’s universal, it’ll be blank. A @ means it’ll likely only work from the guy’s perspective. If it’s intended for a “(blank) seeking same” situation, there will also be a % at the start of the line. (So a tip for a girl to get a girl on a date would have a %& at the head of the line;) Also, submissions are put in as they were originally typed, so if it’s worded as a guy seeking guy situation, but it’s blank, assume it’ll work universally.
And of course, a lot of this depends on the two people involved. I mean, a hardcore goth girl may not be as impressed by flowers as a cheerleader may be.
One: Making Your Move No sense in worrying about keeping a date until you can actually get one.
Two: Types of People There’s all kinds of people in high school. Here’s how to spot them.
Three: Do’s and Don’ts DO be nice to your boy/girlfriend. DON’T make out with them in front of their parents.
Four: Spotting a Date “It’s not a date, it’s just two people meeting for dinner and a movie!” Bull****.
Five: Rejection When all else fails, we have our old friends Anger, Bitterness, and Drinking.
Six: Parental Interference It’s a bad sign when even your parents want to keep you out of the breeding pool. But it happens.
Seven: Don’t be Desperate Just because you haven’t “gotten any” lately doesn’t mean you’ll settle for a particularly good looking sadistic horse.
Eight: Date Conversation Okay, you’ve got a date. Now what do you talk about?
Chapter One: Making Your Move.
Guys, we’ve all been there. You’ve met this really great-looking girl, or maybe in class you get paired up with someone who makes you laugh, or you start to notice something about a friend you’ve had for years, whatever. The important thing is, you feel like you need to do something or you’re gonna explode. But how? There are many ways to get her on a date with you, some of them sneaky and almost needlessly complicated, but most of them will work.
One such strategy is the “Sneak Date”, usually involving a movie. The setup is this: Ask the girl if she wants to come to a movie, and lie that there are gonna be a bunch of people there. If you mention anyone specifically, make sure they’re in on this, and willing to help, just in case she asks one of them “Hey, looking forward to the movie?” If she says yes, arrange cover stories with the people you “invited” so that there are no slip-ups, show up at the movie alone, and wait for her. When she shows up, get the tickets, and when she eventually asks where everyone else is, tell her that they all cancelled. Then, if the two of you manage to survive being alone together for the course of the movie (and can still stand each other), ask her if she wants to “do this again sometime?” And hopefully, you’ll be able to arrange a second date.
Then again, there’s always the option of just telling her how you feel. Simple, to the point. Doesn’t have to be face-to-face, that can be embarrassing, but it may score you points. E-mail or phone works too. Just a simple “I like you, and I was wondering if you wanna see a movie sometime,” or “I think you’re very attractive, how about a date?” Nothing flashy necessary here.
Chapter Two: Types of People.
Obviously, there are many kinds of people in high school, and it sometimes seems like just as you get everyone figured out, someone new pops up. Fear not, that’s why this Guide is here. The following is a list of commonly encountered types of high school students:
Carbonated People: You know those girls who are cute to look at, but generally dumb as an empty can? They are the queens of the carbonated people. They’re called carbonated people because they’re nice to look at (like a colourful pop can), don’t have a lot of substance, they’re so sweet they make your teeth rot, and they’re very irritating in large doses. Typically, carbonated people are girls who keep elementary-school fascinations with the traditional “girly” colours (pinks and purples, mostly), cartoon characters, stuffed animals, and in extreme cases, *shudder*, boy bands. Often prone to giggling fits, and many would become cheerleaders, given the chance. However, it is possible to find a carbonated person who gets very high marks. It’s rare, but it happens.
Jocks: Usually big. Usually dumb. Usually irritable. Usually going after carbonated people or slutty people. Although there have been rumours and even sightings of small, intelligent, docile jocks who have a thing for intelligent people (They hang out with Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa in the off-season). Not a lot to say about jocks, they do tend to live up to the stereotypes, although there are exceptions. Guys on sports teams are more likely to turn into jocks then girls are, for some reason. Probably something to do with evolution, but who cares about that right now? Note that not everyone who joins a sports team is a jock, and not all jocks are on sports teams. Some are simply obsessed with sports, but can’t seem to play any.
Sports Buffs (or Junior Jocks):
Chameleons: You know who the chameleons are. They’re the people who get so insecure about their self-image that they feel the need to change themselves periodically, usually every few months. Don’t get chameleons mixed up with posers, although some of them do hit that phase. Very rarely does a first semester niner become a chameleon, and almost as rare is a grade twelve who suddenly becomes a chameleon; it usually happens somewhere in between, when people are still trying to find a place in high school. Sometimes, it can be triggered by a particularly bad breakup, although simple curiosity can be a cause. It could also be seen as an attempt to get dates from outside the person’s original social circle (for example, someone tries to go Punk to get girls, then tries Goth when that doesn’t work, and so on). Oddly enough, chameleons can sometimes keep the same friends throughout their strange little cycles.
Posers: They think they’re the hottest **** on two legs. They aren’t. They look like the bastard children of Eminem and Vanilla Ice. I can barely even bring myself to describe them, so I’ll meet you halfway: Think Jamie Kennedy in Malibu’s Most Wanted, only watered down slightly. Posers aren’t limited to white boy rappers either. Every semi-popular cultural group has at least 3 white kids (girls too, not just guys) imitating them and making asses of themselves. There’s not much else to say about them, except that they may very well be the real reason napalm was invented.
The Band Geeks: Before I start this one, let me first say I don’t mean Geek in a bad way. Band Geek just sounds funnier then Band Person. Anyways, band geeks are basically anyone who is in the high school band, and tells music-related jokes to their non-band friends (perfect example: “How do you tell when there’s a drummer at the door? The knocking speeds up.”). Typically nice enough people, and they vary from the casual band geek, who wouldn’t even be considered a geek if they didn’t make jokes like the one above, or if they couldn’t actually tell you the difference between a “tromboner” and a “trombonist”, to the rabid band geek who practices their instrument constantly during lunch. Band geeks can even branch out into other social circles, i.e. a carbonated band geek, and tend to blend in with these people easily. A good way to tell if your friend is a band geek is if they are on a first-name basis with any music teacher in the school. And by high school band, I mean the actual band that the school sends to band contests and such, not outside bands that some kids started on their own.
Chapter Three: Do’s and Don’ts.
Okay, so you’ve managed to get them on a date with you. Maybe even several. Maybe the two of you have been going out for a long time, and you’re just reading this to freshen up on your do’s and don’ts! Well, you’ve come to the right chapter. Following are common strategies to keep a relationship going, and tips to keep it from collapsing.
One at a time: Trying to go out with multiple people who all think you’re only going out with them is never a good idea. The guy who wrote Murphy’s Law wasn’t just pessimistic, he was downright sadistic. Situations like this tend to come back and bite those involved square on the ass. Leave juggling to the professionals.
Don’t piss off her folks: This is just common sense. Don’t make an idiot of yourself in front of your boy/girlfriend’s parents. Brothers and sisters are usually safer, but watch out for any tattletale siblings who like to check on the two of you every few minutes.
Possessive = Bad: Most people don’t like being treated like property. Again, common sense.
Test the water before you go swimming: You know how it is: you’re at a party with your date, the two of you go into the make-out closet, and after a few minutes you think you could try something. Don’t just jump right in; test it first. For example, if you’re trying to get your date to make out with you for the first time, kiss them normally, then just open your mouth a bit and see if they respond. Or if you want to know if you can feel their butt without getting slapped, just work your hands downward until your date pushes them back up. Simple.
Don’t rush things: Everyone’s heard “Don’t kiss on the first date”. Some people, however, take it too literally and try to make a move on date #2. Take it slow, or else the other person may get creeped out and leave. There’s no definite “schedule” for when to try certain things, but a good rule of thumb is test the waters every three months or so. Also, NEVER use the F-word in high school; telling your boy/girlfriend you want to be with them forever will usually creep them out and produce the opposite result.
Clingy = Bad: While fanatical devotion to your boy/girlfriend may seem sweet, it doesn’t do any good. It makes you look like an idiot, and it makes them uncomfortable. Clingy and in love are very different things, too. A person who’s in love may think about the other person all the time, but for the most part keeps it to themselves until they’re alone with their boy/girlfriend. A clingy person thinks out loud about their boy/girlfriend, constantly, will flat-out run towards the other person if they so much as see them leave class to get a drink, and often refuses to believe it when the other person dumps them, and will continue to try and act like a boy/girlfriend towards this person for quite some time. More on this in Chapter 7. If your boy/girlfriend starts to act clingy, let them know, and tell them to ease off. If they don’t, dump them. It’s for their own good, and yours.
Chapter Four: Spotting a Date.
Alas, some people can’t spot a date coming a mile away. “Oh, he would never try anything. This dinner and a movie with just the two of us isn’t a date at all.” Bull****. If the other person is into people like you, and you’re into people like them (i.e., a straight girl and a straight guy), odds are, something involving only the two of you is a date. Here are a few ways to tell if you’ve just been asked out on a date, or walked into one:
• Dinner and a movie; date.
• Lunch and a matinee; not date.
• Walk through the park at noon; not date.
• Picnic in the park at noon; date.
• Anything involving candles; date (or ritual).
• Going to the mall with the purpose of buying something; not date (unless they buy it for you).
• Going to the mall just because; date.
Chapter Five: Rejection.
Hey, it happens to the best of us. “I’m sorry, I like you as just a friend,” “I don’t really ‘date’, you know?” “You’re not my type.” Rejection is simply a fact of life when it comes to dating. The trick is how you deal with it. Crying yourself to sleep for a few nights, wearing only black for a week, making and burning little paper dolls of the guy who asked her out just before you were going to, there are many things you can do. Here are a few strategies that usually help:
Beat something: Fairly straightforward, just find a punching bag or one of those human-sized pillows, then try to beat it beyond recognition. This serves the dual purpose of venting your anger, and making you more tired so that you can fall asleep easier.
Write: Writing is surprisingly helpful in a situation like this. And you can do just about anything with it: write depressing/angry poems, write songs to either cheer you up or depress other people, even write a story with a character who keeps getting their heart broken, and name it after the person you tried to ask out. That last one is actually fairly fun. If writing isn’t your style, you could draw, too.
Avoid the other person like the plague: The theory behind this one is: Outta sight, outta mind. Although you may need to work a little harder at this one then the others, it will work, given enough time. The only drawback to it is if the person you’re avoiding has a lot of the same friends you do, then you pretty much end up avoiding your own friends for three weeks or so.
Also, don’t be a jackass if you’re the one rejecting someone else. Don’t feed them any bull**** (unless you’re feeling particularly cruel), just tell them No. Make sure they can hear you, otherwise they’ll think you said something else and that they still have a chance.
Chapter Six: Parental Interference.
Sometimes, no matter what you do, your boy/girlfriend’s parents just do not like you. Or maybe your parents don’t like your boy/girlfriend. Maybe it’s a cultural thing (for example, someone with hardcore Muslim parents dating someone with hardcore Jewish parents). Maybe one set of parents or the other doesn’t want their baby to date. Never fear, the Guide is here! There are ways around these parental roadblocks:
Set up a code: Let’s say that neither set of parents like what’s going on. This can make phone conversation difficult. So, set up a code with your boy/girlfriend, so that to any parental eavesdroppers, it’ll sound like you’re talking about school. For example, “math quiz” could be code for movie, “physics project” for a party, “computer science test” if you just want to meet at the park and make out, and so on. Of course, you’d need another code word for “Really, it’s school-related” if you were actually trying to talk about the math quiz on Friday.
Underground Bus Line: Like the Underground Railroad, but a lot smaller. Just get a bunch of friends whose houses you can go to to meet your boy/girlfriend, then go places from there. Also good for if your parents don’t want you to go to a party: tell them you’ll be studying at Bill’s house, but get a ride with Bill to the party instead. It’s easier to beg forgiveness then ask permission. You’ll need to change the names occasionally, though, and make sure that at least some of these friends live close enough to walk to, but not close enough to see from your house.
Lie: I’m surprised more people don’t think of this one. If your parents are hardcore religious people who don’t want you to date, tell them you’re going off to whatever place of worship your religion has with a bunch of friends of the same gender. Then just leave to go on a date!
Above all, never dump someone just because your parents tell you to!
Chapter Seven: Don’t be desperate
Have you ever seen a guy that has been clinging to EVERY DAMN GIRL he sees? He has what I like to call stupid-sad-dumb-ass-who-can’t-figure-out-that-that-doesn’t-work syndrome, it’s a technical term. Guys (and girls), either things happen, or things don’t, and unless you’re actually a really good player (in which case you wouldn’t be reading this), you don’t try to go after random girls.
The key thing to see is that just because a girl is being nice to you, it doesn’t mean that she will date you. You have to prove you’re a nice guy and stuff in order to let HER choose you. The willingness to date has to go both ways, and if you want her to feel the same way about you, you have to do something in order for that to happen.
Now, let’s say that everyone one around you is dating, and getting some, and all of a sudden there is this girl that likes you too. Don’t just say yes right off the bat, unless you know who she is and feel comfortable with her. As much as people say that high school dating is pointless, it isn’t, it’s for experience, and although we all make mistakes, it doesn’t mean we should be idiots about it and make them on purpose.
Chapter Eight: Date Conversation.
You’ve actually managed to get a date with that someone you’ve had your eye on. Now the problem is, what do the two of you talk about?
Show some interest: You’d be surprised how well this works. Ask the other person about their hobbies, job, favourite music, pets, whatever. It usually leads to funny stories, and it helps you get to know the person better. Just watch out for topics like ex-boy/girlfriends, and you should be fine.
Common ground: If you’re going out with someone you’ve already known for a while, this is easy. Try to talk about things you have in common, stuff you both like, people you both can’t stand.