When it comes to dating, I’d thought I’d seen, heard and done it all.
But late last week I perused a certain ladies' lifestyle magazine while waiting at the supermarket checkout, as is my guilty habit, and I encountered a pre-date preparation story that caught my eye.
Advertisement: Story continues below
Forget stomach-sucking stockings, sex-ready bed-hair, or lipstick in shades of scarlet fertility, this glossy rag for cosmopolitan young ladies expertly advised there was one thing, and one thing only that counted come date night.Your knickers! (I read, mildly interested). Don’t wear them!
Instead, let the sweet perfume of your lady bits flirt for you!
(Interested!)
While the science behind this ‘expert’ article wasn’t anything particularly new – the so-called irresistible magic of fragrant sex pheromones has been used to flog products, including magazines, for yonks – but the notion of going commando for reasons other than the obvious was something a little out of the ordinary.
Thus prompted to consider the other less than ordinary things we funny creatures do as part of the elegant dance of courtship, and wonder whether there really are some pre-show strategies that do work wonders.
For inspiration, I turned to the animal kingdom. This move proved largely unhelpful but extremely interesting. For instance: a male hippo attracts a female by using his tail to spray her with his faeces; while male porcupines shower their lady friends with long streams of urine. Perhaps not recommendable practices for the human world, but a handy metaphor for sexual diversity nonetheless.
And while looking into the mating habits of bowerbirds (boys spruce up their humble abode to impress the pants off hot chicks), I began to wonder who paid more attention to pre-date ritual, men or women?
My initial thought was that girls were more concerned with getting date-ready than boys. The sheer size of the female beauty and hygiene industry coupled with that known fact that gals simply must labour for hours on their physical appearance in order to be pleasing to men, find a date (and so, find life's purpose), is testament to that fact.
Yet when I took to Google, god of all information, and searched for ‘pre-date tips’, my expectations floundered when instead of blue links to pink websites playing on female body insecurities and hygiene concerns, my results were blue-through.
Is this because blokes, hunters and gatherers all, enjoy searching out information? Perhaps it’s a sign that men still prefer to privately learn rather than publicly discuss? Or do woman actually set higher standards for men, than the other way around?
So I clicked. And I discovered some things men are told they ‘should’ do before dates include: shining their shoes, cleaning their cars, ‘manscaping’, laundering clothes, brushing teeth, shaving, cleaning their sheets, and working out. Funnily enough, being ‘on time’ wasn’t mentioned …
Fragrance was, however, yet contrary to encouragement I received at the supermarket to let my female-funk waft all over my man-of-the-moment, lads were advised to apply cologne, at least an hour before date time so that the smell had time to come into bloom. Lovely.
But honestly, it’s all a little ridiculous, isn’t it? Besides good hygiene, good manners, good sexual health habits, and a good sense of self, there’s nothing else that really matters when it comes to being a dating success.
Or is there?
What do you do to prepare for a big date? Have you ever prepared something you later found worked against your favour?
And, gents, just how accurate is that scene from There’s Something About Mary?
No comments:
Post a Comment