A couple of weeks ago, the illustrious and infamous Fishy of Plenty More Fish Out of Water published a brilliant little piece about the top five things that he looks out for on his first dates. It was positively inspiring.
So in honor of Fishy’s work, I’ve decided to compile my own list.
After almost five months of countless first dates and one second date, I’m finally able to pinpoint five major issues that I look out for on a parisian first date…
(1) Are my arms bigger than his legs?
Another variation of this question is: Can I bench-press him?
It wasn’t until I moved to Paris that this was ever an issue.
I don’t know what it is about the life here that it makes the men so… slight. Could it be the diet? Could it be that the women here are so tyrannically bitchy that they literally reduce their men into tiny little slivers of manhood leftovers?
I have no idea.
All I do know is that this size differential is unacceptable.
I simply can’t date someone who looks like an anorexic baby giraffe. Case in point: Mr. Pretty Woman, whose upper arms were the size of my wrist.
(2) Is he tall enough to go on the adult rides at Disneyland?
At a whopping 5’3″, I’ve never had a problem finding a guy who is taller than me.
But it’s shocking how difficult this is in Paris.
Shameful.
Comical even.
I’ve discovered that no amount of first-date drunkenness is enough for me to find a munchkin attractive.
And while Mr. Almost There was the closest I’ve ever come to a decent first date, he was a victim of severe munchkinosis, which could be to blame for his insecurities and for the patronizing asstardedness that he displayed on our second date.
Yes, I went on two dates with him. I had to prove to myself that height wasn’t a deal-breaker for me.
As it turns out, it is a dealbreaker. At least in Paris, anyway.
Am I superficial and utterly without substance?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
(3) Is his COCKtail actually a COOCHtail?
Just because “cocktail” has the word “cock” in it, by no means does that make it acceptable for a grown man to order one on a date.
For the same reason that a lady shouldn’t break out her big buckets of crazy all at once, a man shouldn’t sabotage his chances of seeing a lady’s naked woman-bits by ordering glow-in-the-dark girly drinks.
Obvious, right?
Not in Paris.
ALL my dates, including all my speed-dates, have ordered ridiculous frilly concoctions. (There was even a drink whose glass was fitted with a tiny light fixture that changed the color of the drink every ten seconds.) Mr. Love-You-Long-Time really blew it when he ordered his Hello Kitty coochtail and belittled my beer-drinking ways.
Asstard.
(4) Is he capable of talking about something OTHER than my asian-ness?
Yes. I’m Asian.
Of all people, I’m the last person who needs to be reminded of this fact.
I especially don’t want to be reminded by some pasty creep who doesn’t know his asian from his arse.
As I’ve discussed before, I have nothing against the Asian fetish. It’s something that I can use to my advantage in today’s cutthroat dating marketplace.
But please.
I don’t want to be called a geisha (see Mr. Metro Casanova), and I don’t want to receive pictures of a guy and his dim sum (see “the deal-breaker“).
And guys, if you happen to have a penchant for the slanty-eyed ladies such as myself, don’t screw it up by saying the shite that some of my parisian idiot-dates have come up with.
(5) Do I have the urge to either vomit or to run away screaming?
Mr. Icky almost made me vomit… in his mouth.
And I’ve run away from not one, but THREE dates.
By “run away,” I don’t mean that I made my polite excuses and parted ways amicably but quickly.
I literally ran away.
Mr. Cheshire Cat was the incarnation of all my most terrifying childhood nightmares, and I bolted after drinking only a quarter of my pint. Mr. Ten Minute Wonder was the shortest date in my entire dating history (and no, it wasn’t a speed date!); I backed out so quickly that I lost a glove, which I’m still very upset about. And Mr. Crazy had me sprinting through metro doors as they closed, at which point I got stuck and had to get pulled through by the other passengers.
As far as I’m concerned, as long as a guy doesn’t make my digestive system run in reverse, and as long as he doesn’t force me to run in heels, it’s a good start to our relationship.
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So as far as standards go, mine have plummeted since I started this dating experiment.
On a first date, I’ve stopped prioritizing substantive things like intelligence, wit, ambition, generosity, openness, etc.
Apparently, to get a pass on a first date with me, a parisian guy just needs to do two things:
- Fill out a suit that comes from the men’s clothing department — not the boy’s section
According to my data, this is next to impossible.
Who would’ve thought?
So as I finalize my social calendar for this coming weekend, I fully anticipate coming home empty-handed yet again and falling asleep alone to choruses of…
… next, next, next, next, next…
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