One bad date too many

Morning all, herewith yesterday’s Sunday Times column. Hope you enjoy.

There’s a new magazine out on South African shelves. It’s targeted specifically at single people. It’s called ‘Date’, and their pay-off line is ‘Find true happiness through Date – the magazine for singles.’ And why not, I suppose. Although you don’t see any magazines out there titled ‘Argue Magazine’, or ‘Bitter Disappointment Weekly’, or ‘Sex Quarterly’, the magazine for couples and marrieds.

It’s an interesting concept, and in this day and age magazines do seem to be going rather niche. There are magazines especially for scrap bookers, horse lovers, brides and mothers to be, and brides who are mothers to be. There are even magazines for wig wearers, so why not one for single people too? Goodness knows it’s a mad world out there for us daters; we could use all the help and advice we can get.

So far I’ve paged through two issues. First the June/July 2010 issue with Charlize on the cover, and then the August/September 2010 issue, which has Sandra Bullock on the cover. Although my sense is that Charlize and Sandra are probably having slightly different dating experiences to you and I. Keanu or Clooney, hmmm, who shall I date next?

I was particularly astonished by the article on whether you should get liposuction before a first date or not. It’s not really something I’ve ever considered before. Normally just dealing with waxing and plucking and shaving and moisturising adequately before a date is stressful enough, but now are we doing plastic surgery too? Shoo, that’s altogether a little too extreme for me.

But I guess I shouldn’t knock it till I try it. After all, if I was that good at dating I wouldn’t still be doing it, would I? I’ve been on trillions of dates, potentially even zillions, and I still don’t seem to get much better at it.

There was the one date where the guy rocked up at the fancy restaurant in grubby, holey old tracksuit bottoms, slops with socks and a vest. At first I thought maybe he’d come straight to the date from the gym, but when I asked him if that was the case he looked at me like I was mad. It turned out that’s just how he dresses. Oh joy.

On another date with a different guy, after a wonderful two course dinner and some expensive scotch that he’d recommended, he discovered he’d left his wallet at home, by mistake. When it happened again on the third date I realised the joke was on me.

Really, how many bad dates must one girl go on? I reckon when you reach a point where you think a good date is one where you don’t get chopped up into a million little pieces by an axe murderer with halitosis, then you’ve probably been on one bad date too many.

After doing a bit of research I was very relieved to discover I’m not the only person with bad dating experiences. A close friend’s mother once set her up with a guy. After dinner out they went to a party, where her date promptly found himself a comfortable corner, sat down on the floor, pulled a book out of his pocket, and started reading. What a keeper.

So the question is, do we really need a bi-monthly magazine to tell us how to behave on dates? I wouldn’t have thought so. Surely it’s part common sense and part common decency to brush your teeth before a date, or put on nice clothes, or remember your wallet? And none of my dates have ever gone horribly wrong because I didn’t get liposuction before the big night.

One of the other articles in this strange magazine was a dating rules segment, which included this gem: ‘Don’t tell him you’re secretly a vampire’. Aha, that might explain my abysmal dating history, that’s one of my very favourite pick up lines.