Bad Date Stories

Beware the Breakup ULTIMATUM

I am SO not an expert in dating, it's not funny. I have not been on a date in many years, and I don't plan to ever date again.

I'd rather set my hair on fire and then try to douse it with gasoline.

So you can take everything I say with a big grain of salt.

HOWEVER....

I know this much. Giving someone an ultimatum is usually not a good idea when you are dating. I have heard this countless times from my female friends:

"So I told HIM, we've been dating for over a YEAR and I need some kind of proof that he is committed. I want to get married before my uterus dries up and falls OUT!"

"You tell him you want a RING, girlfriend! He needs to know he is NOT the only fish in the SEA!"

and on and on and on - let's all drink margaritas and dance around singing Beyonce's "Put A Ring On It."

Then the Complainer decides she will just lay it on the line with the Guy.

Now in Hollyweird, it plays out like this. Complainer lets him know she needs him to commit to co-habitation or marriage. He balks. They break up. He dates other people and then realizes she is THE ONE. He goes back to the Complainer.  They go off into the sunset.

Does that happen in real life? Probably not so much.

My parents got together because Mom gave Dad an ultimatum when they were dating. She had advanced to the scary age of 22 and was without a husband. In 1957 that was getting into Old Maid territory. Mom's aunt Miriam had her whole prayer circle trying to get her hooked up with a husband.

Mom said to Dad, "Look here, I'm not getting any younger and I want to get married and start a family. If you're not going to marry me, we're through."

above, the engagement

However, most of the time ultimatums don't work. Nobody likes them. They are not conducive to happy feelings.

If you are seriously pondering whipping out a nasty old ultimatum, re-think. Sometimes you can finagle the result you want if you choose your words carefully. For instance - "I understand your feelings and I respect them, but I have to be by myself for a while, to reflect on how I need to move forward" - is less harsh than "put up or shut up."

Once you've said those diplomatic words and walked away, you are depriving the other person of your company - and you may choose to even [gasp] stop texting, emailing and/or calling. That does the same thing as a Breakup Ultimatum. However, you are saying I have to figure out how to take care of ME. You are not indicating the other person HAS to follow YOUR program.

If the other person is deprived of your company for a while, one of two things will occur. They will decide they desperately need you back and comply with your wishes, OR they will decide they actually DON'T need you back in order to be happy.

Either way, you've not made an enemy.

Ultimatums, however, make enemies. They set you at odds with the other person.

If you really want the relationship to thrive, you have to let it be a natural occurrence, not a forced thing.  Creatures forced into traps will almost always try to get OUT. That's not conducive to a long and happy situation.

So beware the Breakup Ultimatum. Understand the risks, and ponder better ways to accomplish your goal.

Parental Advice

I was reading an excert from a hilarious book by Elna Baker called The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance and I thought wow, that brings back memories.(Wow, that's a long title, huh?!)

I got some fairly non-useful advice when I was a teenager too. It was the early 1980's. My mother said these two brilliant things: Never ask a boy out on a date. [too aggressive] AND Never have sex with anyone you're not married to - EVER.

Yep, Mom was a time traveler from 1956.

But I digress. I really wanted to publish an excerpt from Elna's book. She also has a cute website. I hope I am not going to tick her off. I am trying to help her sell books here. I admire her moxie in publishing it. So here goes, if you need a good laugh for today:

"I remember when I got my acceptance letter from BYU via the British
Royal Mail. I opened the thick envelope, looked at the emblem of the
busy honeybees all working together, and then read the word
"Congratulations." It felt good. Any letter of acceptance makes you
feel good. But when I got my letter of acceptance to NYU, something
was different. I opened the package on my way up to my room, read
the word "Congratulations," and started to sob, right there on
the stairs. I sat down and I cried. I didn't realize how much
getting into NYU meant to me until I had those huge tears pouring
down my cheeks. And that's when I knew I had to go to New York City.

My mother was terrified. She's the more conservative of my parents,
and when she's not busy being a mom, she spends her time forwarding
cheesy e-mails about Christian miracles, or signing petitions
against Abercrombie & Fitch's pornographic ads. To her, New York was
the city from the movies made in the seventies, where you heard
gunshots out your window and pimps screaming at hos. Not that there
were many scenes like that in the PG-rated movies my mother was
inclined to watch. But still, New York was a scary, dangerous place.
A month before I went off to college, she sat me down for a
mother-daughter talk.

"Elna," she said nervously. "The first thing that will happen when
you move to New York is, you might start to swear."

I wanted to say, "Oh 's hit,' really?" But I knew that only my dad
would think that was funny. Instead I nodded my head and said, "Mmm
hmm."

"And Elna," she continued, "swearing will lead to drinking."

I had somehow missed the connection.

"And drinking will lead to doing drugs."

The conversation was starting to get more amusing than even I had
anticipated. "And Elna," she said, pursing her lips and looking
directly into my eyes, "what would you do if a lesbian tried to make
out with you?"

I didn't think double takes existed outside of "Three's Company"
until that moment. I was used to her saying words like "church
calling, relief society," and "bishopric meeting." Not the word
"lesbian," let alone "lesbian" and "make out" in the same sentence.
It was awesome. But I was also slightly offended. If you followed my
mother's logic, each step was a progression toward becoming more of
a sinner. First I'd swear, then I'd drink, then I'd do drugs. By
that point I was getting used to the narrative, so I assumed sex
with men would be next. But no--my mother skipped that altogether
and jumped to my becoming a lesbian. Did my mother honestly think
that I had a better chance of getting action from a woman than a
man?

These are all questions I didn't ask her directly. But at this point
I'd almost forgotten she'd asked me anything: What would I do if a
lesbian tried to make out with me?

She was sitting there, arms folded, waiting for an answer.

"I'd say, 'No, thank you...lesbian.'"

My mother rolled her eyes. "There's one more thing," she said,
resuming our heart-to-heart.

"Sex with men, sex with men, sex with men."

"There are these clubs in New York where men pay larger women to
dance with very little clothing on; don't do that."

Our mother-daughter talk ended with that golden nugget of wisdom. I
left thinking, "Great, my mom thinks I'm moving to the big city to
become a lesbian stripper. Apparently, when she told me I was
"special," this is what she meant.

"My father sat me down a few days later for another leaving-the-nest
talk. His advice was a little different.

"Elna," he began, "never forget these three things." He paused for
dramatic effect. "Number One: Never wear a dead man's socks. Number
Two: Never let 'em see you sweat. And Number Three: Never touch a
fat man's stomach."

I waited for him to clarify, to add a line that would somehow make
all the other words he'd said make sense. But he just patted me on
the shoulder and left me in the living room to contemplate his
wisdom.

That was all the advice I was given before moving to New York City.

I wanted more, or at the very least a tender good-bye. Only this
was interrupted when the check-in clerk announced that my bag was
too heavy. My father opened it in the middle of the terminal. I
watched as he pulled out items of sentimental value, told me I
didn't need them, and threw them away.

That's when my mother saw it, among my tightly folded clothes: a
rainbow scarf. I wasn't keeping it from her. I'd owned it for
several years, and had purchased it because it reminded me of Punky
Brewster in a retro eighties sort of way. She snatched it out of my
suitcase."

If you want to leave a comment and let me know the extent of the parental or dating advice you got as a teenager, feel free.