By Will Irwin
My dad’s told me two things about dating: to be confident and to let her talk. “A good listener is a keeper,” he told me. It’s all about making her feel understood, and listened to, and valued. Then she’ll like you.
Dating is a lot like taking LSD. When it’s good, it has the potential to be life changing. When it’s bad, it’s really, really bad. You wind up in some place and state of mind you don’t want to be in, and you’re seeing freaky shit, and everybody knows you’re so high. Oh – also, dating is a lot like taking LSD because it usually involves a lot of tripping.
It wasn’t really a date, but I went on a something like one with a girl once and I was really baked. I didn’t plan on being stoned – it just kind of happened. We just sat and talked. Well, we sat and she talked. I don’t think I said more than twenty words. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the opportunity or I didn’t want to. I was just nervous. I didn’t want to look dumb.
There were two bright lights on the wall behind her face. She had such a pretty face. I kept trying to phrase some compliment, like, “Hey, your face looks really good with the light on it,” but I never got the words right. By the end of the night, both lights were burned into my cornea, along with her outline. I put in some eye drops and realized I spent literally the entire time just staring at her face, saying nothing, being high. I hardly blinked.
That was pretty much the best date ever. Stoned silence. That’s my jam. But, very understandably, she wasn’t too into it. I just really liked her face, and the things she had to say. Every sentence was so fascinating, and she told stories in a way that it didn’t sound like she’d told them a hundred times before. Listening paralyzed me.
Most dating advice is complete bullshit. People only give it so they can flex their romance muscles and show off how regularly they get laid. How many times have you heard someone start giving advice, only to turn it into a story of one of their triumphs? Most dating advice is geared to make you change who you are to be right, anyhow. It doesn’t work.
Confidence. Confidence is key – that’s what everyone says. But what does confidence look like? To me, I guess it’s something like walking tall, shutting people down if they step on you, talking yourself up. That isn’t who I am. I’m very non-confrontational. This one time a guy took my burger at the DH. I just let him.
I’ve been confident on dates before – in the traditional, cool guy sense. It’s even worked! I’ve convinced girls I’m cool. The only problem is I’m me. The further I make it, the more I’m still going to be myself. Instead of trying to be myself, I’ve tried to be right.
I’ve approached dating with my head in the game. On dates, the cogs are always turning, and I’m always trying to think of something valuable or funny to say. I end up trying so hard to display the right version of myself I become a different person.
It’s impossible to be right through trying. Someone is either right or wrong. That’s all there is to it. If you aren’t right for someone, that’s okay! There are other people! Instead of trying to be confident, try to confidently be yourself. I’m a little awkward sometimes. I’m doing my personality a lot more justice being confidently awkward than I would putting on the cool guy act – and just like everyone knows you’re on acid, everybody knows you aren’t actually that cool.
Sometimes things come out of my mouth that I’m not expecting. Once a rigatoni catapulted itself from the alcove between my teeth and gums and out onto the tablecloth on a date. Earlier, when I picked her up, she said, “Sorry about running late, I got a little more beauty sleep than I thought.”
“You look like you got some beauty sleep,” I said to her. A smirk lights up inside my brain. Good one, Will. Top notch. “Wait, fuck - ” I started. “I’m not trying to say you look like you just woke up. I meant you’re beautiful – because of the beauty sleep, right?”
Now I am utterly convinced the best approach to dating is to get your head out of the game. To stop thinking so much, and to focus energy on being. Also: it’s probably a good idea to not be stoned, unless that’s part of the date.
Trying to be right leads you down a weird path. My first sexual relationship - if you can even call it that - was 99% texting. I was fifteen. She had a very particular fetish, which conveniently aligned with the assigned reading in my literature class. She wanted me to sext her in Early Modern English. I spent countless hours of my life dreaming up line after line of sensual Shakespearean dialogue, and the worst part was, she didn’t have a proper understanding of the style. She thought “thou” meant “I,” which made decoding her texts a nightmare.
I didn’t really care if I was having a good time. I just wanted to be right. But that’s stupid. What’s the use of being accepted and loved if the other person doesn’t even know who you are? It’s plastic. If I could give my past self one piece of dating advice, it would be to chill out and be yourself. Real confidence is believing the badass baller you actually are is good enough.
And if it isn’t enough, I’ve heard taking LSD can be a transformative experience.
Will Irwin is a Writing for Film and TV major at Emerson College. To the dismay of his peers, romanticism got to Will at a young age on the back of an embarrassing amount of late Middle School nights spent watching romantic comedies on TBS. He fell in love with love a hundred years ago, and their relationship - though sometimes dysfunctional - has been going strong ever since.
My dad’s told me two things about dating: to be confident and to let her talk. “A good listener is a keeper,” he told me. It’s all about making her feel understood, and listened to, and valued. Then she’ll like you.
Dating is a lot like taking LSD. When it’s good, it has the potential to be life changing. When it’s bad, it’s really, really bad. You wind up in some place and state of mind you don’t want to be in, and you’re seeing freaky shit, and everybody knows you’re so high. Oh – also, dating is a lot like taking LSD because it usually involves a lot of tripping.
It wasn’t really a date, but I went on a something like one with a girl once and I was really baked. I didn’t plan on being stoned – it just kind of happened. We just sat and talked. Well, we sat and she talked. I don’t think I said more than twenty words. It wasn’t because I didn’t have the opportunity or I didn’t want to. I was just nervous. I didn’t want to look dumb.
There were two bright lights on the wall behind her face. She had such a pretty face. I kept trying to phrase some compliment, like, “Hey, your face looks really good with the light on it,” but I never got the words right. By the end of the night, both lights were burned into my cornea, along with her outline. I put in some eye drops and realized I spent literally the entire time just staring at her face, saying nothing, being high. I hardly blinked.
That was pretty much the best date ever. Stoned silence. That’s my jam. But, very understandably, she wasn’t too into it. I just really liked her face, and the things she had to say. Every sentence was so fascinating, and she told stories in a way that it didn’t sound like she’d told them a hundred times before. Listening paralyzed me.
Most dating advice is complete bullshit. People only give it so they can flex their romance muscles and show off how regularly they get laid. How many times have you heard someone start giving advice, only to turn it into a story of one of their triumphs? Most dating advice is geared to make you change who you are to be right, anyhow. It doesn’t work.
Confidence. Confidence is key – that’s what everyone says. But what does confidence look like? To me, I guess it’s something like walking tall, shutting people down if they step on you, talking yourself up. That isn’t who I am. I’m very non-confrontational. This one time a guy took my burger at the DH. I just let him.
I’ve been confident on dates before – in the traditional, cool guy sense. It’s even worked! I’ve convinced girls I’m cool. The only problem is I’m me. The further I make it, the more I’m still going to be myself. Instead of trying to be myself, I’ve tried to be right.
I’ve approached dating with my head in the game. On dates, the cogs are always turning, and I’m always trying to think of something valuable or funny to say. I end up trying so hard to display the right version of myself I become a different person.
It’s impossible to be right through trying. Someone is either right or wrong. That’s all there is to it. If you aren’t right for someone, that’s okay! There are other people! Instead of trying to be confident, try to confidently be yourself. I’m a little awkward sometimes. I’m doing my personality a lot more justice being confidently awkward than I would putting on the cool guy act – and just like everyone knows you’re on acid, everybody knows you aren’t actually that cool.
Sometimes things come out of my mouth that I’m not expecting. Once a rigatoni catapulted itself from the alcove between my teeth and gums and out onto the tablecloth on a date. Earlier, when I picked her up, she said, “Sorry about running late, I got a little more beauty sleep than I thought.”
“You look like you got some beauty sleep,” I said to her. A smirk lights up inside my brain. Good one, Will. Top notch. “Wait, fuck - ” I started. “I’m not trying to say you look like you just woke up. I meant you’re beautiful – because of the beauty sleep, right?”
Now I am utterly convinced the best approach to dating is to get your head out of the game. To stop thinking so much, and to focus energy on being. Also: it’s probably a good idea to not be stoned, unless that’s part of the date.
Trying to be right leads you down a weird path. My first sexual relationship - if you can even call it that - was 99% texting. I was fifteen. She had a very particular fetish, which conveniently aligned with the assigned reading in my literature class. She wanted me to sext her in Early Modern English. I spent countless hours of my life dreaming up line after line of sensual Shakespearean dialogue, and the worst part was, she didn’t have a proper understanding of the style. She thought “thou” meant “I,” which made decoding her texts a nightmare.
I didn’t really care if I was having a good time. I just wanted to be right. But that’s stupid. What’s the use of being accepted and loved if the other person doesn’t even know who you are? It’s plastic. If I could give my past self one piece of dating advice, it would be to chill out and be yourself. Real confidence is believing the badass baller you actually are is good enough.
And if it isn’t enough, I’ve heard taking LSD can be a transformative experience.
Will Irwin is a Writing for Film and TV major at Emerson College. To the dismay of his peers, romanticism got to Will at a young age on the back of an embarrassing amount of late Middle School nights spent watching romantic comedies on TBS. He fell in love with love a hundred years ago, and their relationship - though sometimes dysfunctional - has been going strong ever since.