Eyes Wide Open: Ten Tips for Blind Dates
By Rhona Raskin
Well-meaning people who can’t match a polo shirt to a pair of pants are all too eager to match you up with a lifelong partner for kissing and towel sharing. The urge to merge two friends transcends expertise and insight. It’s primal and powerful. Your friends think you’ll be happier coupled up. A buddy of ten years will consider you picky if you turn down an intro to her third cousin Wilbur—the poet who has finally stumbled on the best medicine for adult acne.
So why go on a blind date at all? The concept continues to exist because it actually works on occasion. Your well-intentioned comrades hope you will be the one to score. They want to be invited to the wedding and be able to tell The Story of How They Met.
Here are some road rules for making the best of blind dates:
1. Get pertinent information about the potential “datee” before the meeting. If you need an “out” clause, it’s easier to find one earlier than later. “Oh, gee, I have a big thing about not dating anyone whose religion is vastly different than mine” sounds so much better than complaining afterwards about how you hated bagging sandwiches while he fulfilled his Saturday morning door-to-door theological requirements.
2. Ask your friends why they think this encounter will enrich your life. Anyone who can’t come up with a great reply in fifteen seconds doesn’t really think there is a reason. Guilt is not a good reason to date.
3. Talk on the phone first. This will give you a small window into the mysterious world he or she inhabits.
4. Bring someone along to keep the conversation rolling—preferably, the friends whose bright idea it was to mingle your genetic material with that of a vegetarian lawyer who spends every Friday night with his mom and her tap-dancing group.
5. Do not wear a T-shirt proclaiming any political bent, or anything emblazoned with cute sayings like “Vegans Unite” or “Rehab is for Quitters.” Don’t recruit for any cause over bagels. And don’t argue.
6. Wear comfortable clothes. The jaunty lace bolero requires too much input during a feast at the hot-dog wagon. Go casual.
7. Make it short. Lunch is good. Breakfast is better. If the meet is a bust, a couple of eggs over easy and you’re out of there. If it’s a success, then you have the rest of the afternoon to wander through the downtown museum together.
8. Don’t get all worked up. This is a mere moment in the life of the universe, not an appointment to the position of Ambassador to the UN.
9. Be nice. It doesn’t matter whether you are interested in giving him your number or Dr. Kevorkian’s—people are people and their feelings are precious, just like yours. Despite bravado or indifference, kindness is an act of self-preservation. We all like to think we have some redeeming quality, even if the encounter is a bust.
10. And finally, under no circumstances lower yourself to a pathetic ball of fraud or powerlessness by arranging sneaky escape hatches at the other person’s expense. A guy I know told his blind date he’d pick her up on the corner. When he passed by, he wasn’t impressed, so he kept driving. Writer Larry Klein suggests telling your date the clothes you’d be wearing and then wearing something different—similar ruse, same bad feelings. If you can’t stand an hour over coffee with a fellow human, your ethical battery needs recharging. Remember: It’s just a moment in time.