TEN DEAD GIVEAWAYS THAT
PRINCE CHARMING IS A FROG
By Gloria G. Brame
The following is excerpted from Gloria's
Handbook on dating - WHERE
THE BOYS ARE: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Mr. Right
Into every life a little rain must
fall--and into every woman's life a frog will leap. More than
a few of us have come to a first date expecting to find a heart-throb,
and have gone home with only a pounding headache. Unfortunately,
women seem to have a hormonal need to make excuses for men's quirky
behavior. Perhaps this is a survival trait for our gender.
Nonetheless, save your mercy for the
men you marry and remain skeptical about the ones you meet on
blind dates. Knowing how to spot the warning signs of frogdom
right away is the best way to protect yourself against future
disappointment.
Here is our list of ten dead giveaways
that your Prince Charming is actually an amphibian in disguise.
1. He Suffers From Vacant Room Syndrome:
He says he wants to meet you but
he has absolutely no ideas about where to go or what to do.
He shows up empty-handed and unshaven, wearing whatever he found
lying on top of the clean laundry pile, he has to clear all
the empty six-packs from the front seat of his car for you to
squeeze in, and his number one question all night is "So
whaddya wanna do next?"
What does this say? It should tell
you that he either is brain-dead or that he is a selfish swine
who has not devoted any time to planning out the date or trying
to think of what might please you. Men like this never get better:
you can expect them also to forget birthdays and anniversaries--and
don't expect flowers or presents on Valentine's Day either.
2. He Shows Off His Disgusting Personal
Habits:
We all have them but most of us
have the common sense to indulge them only in total privacy.
Men who feel comfortable enough to share their own weird personal
quirks or intestinal gases with you on a first date are either
such delightful iconoclasts that you can forgive them; or such
unmannerly boors that you might as well prepare now for a lifetime
of picking up their rancid socks from the floor. In fact, for
some men, disgusting personal habits are almost a badge of pride--that
beer-scented belch isn't a belch at all but a sign of their
membership in the tribe of men.
Many of us, of course, see most men
as in need of some domestic training. But why settle for a handywoman's
special? If their mothers were unable to instill good habits
in them, you probably won't be able to do a better job.
3. He Bears A Strong Resemblance To Scrooge:
One of the results of women's
growing marketplace equality is that we have had to give up
one of the perks of traditional femininity: getting the men
to pay for everything. Still, though we now expect to pay our
own way (at least some of the time), it is a good idea to avoid
men who grip a dime just a little too tight.
If your date studies the food bill
as if it were his bank statement, and then insists on splitting
it down to the exact penny, raise an eyebrow. If he consistently
asks you to contribute more than your half share, raise two
eyebrows. If he asks to borrow money or tries to make you pay
for everything, raise Cain.
Now, it is perfectly acceptable to
pay for a man IF that was your agreement going in, or even if
you feel spontaneously generous. But let that be YOUR decision,
not his. Men who are stingy with you when it comes to money
will probably also turn out to be stingy with other things--like
emotional support, affection or sex.
4. He Acts Like El Bizarro:
We all make mistakes or say silly
things, particularly when we're under the pressure of meeting
someone for the first time. But begin lacing your Nikes if the
stranger you're with shows signs of oddly disjointed speech
or sociopathic behavior. Did he tell you on the phone that he
has 3 sisters, whereas he now claims he has only brothers? Did
he say he has a great relationship with his mother and talks
to her regularly--only to inform you over dinner that she died
three years ago? Are there odd gaps in his history which could
be explained by extended stays in places with bars on their
doors and windows?
A certain amount of eccentricity
is entertaining. But if your date's facts don't add up, or if
he starts telling you about the time he woke up on an operating
table in Roswell, New Mexico....RUN!
5. He Acts Like El Bizarro/Part Two:
He knows everyone and everyone
knows him. He's been everywhere and, while he was there, he
did everything. He's phenomenally successful--and a genius too!
In fact, he is working on a sensational idea which will make
him a millionaire one day very, very soon. It's only by the
sheerest of coincidences that he's never been more than 50 miles
from Newark, has no friends, can't hold a steady job and lives
off his invalid mother's social security checks...and, by the
way, could you pay for dinner, since his companionship is well
worth the price of the meal?
Or perhaps everything is just grand.
He is successful and strong, and seems perfectly stable. He
takes your hand and gazes tenderly into your eyes across the
candle-lit table. And then he romantically whispers, "You're
getting a really huge pimple on your chin. Did you know?"
What mad scientist created this strange
species of clueless men who seem to be cloning about us with
reckless abandon? We don't know. What we do know, however, is
that if he SEEMS deluded or completely unaware of the effect
his words might have on you, then he IS deluded and unaware--and
not likely to change.
6. He Clock-Watches.
This is the 90s. We're all in
a rush. That said, beware of the man who always has his eye
on the clock. If he is rushing you through the first course
as he glances at his wristwatch, either he is having a bad time
or, more likely, he has another appointment on his mind. Natural
female curiosity may compel you to ask why he is anxious to
know the hour: natural male stupidity may compel him to confess
he's hoping to catch the last innings of a ball game on TV.
Are you ready for a lifetime of standing out in left-field?
If he offers an acceptable excuse,
be gracious and cut him some slack--we all occasionally are
trapped by that demon, time. But if he gets embarrassed at your
question, and stumbles through a weak alibi, he is trying to
hide something--possibly a wife and children who are expecting
him home for dinner that night.
Meanwhile, if YOU find yourself glancing
at your wristwatch counting down the minutes until you can leave,
then the time for you to leave has already come.
7. He's Mr. Gadget:
Wendy went on a date with a successful
psychiatrist who placed his cell-phone and beeper on the table,
and proceeded to take phonecalls throughout the meal.
"The way he stuck all his gadgets
on the table between us, I kept wondering if he was trying to
put up a barrier between us. If he was, it worked," Wendy
says. By the time dessert arrived, he had committed two people
to institutions and Wendy was ready to go to one.
Is your date more interested in playing
phone-tag with his office than in maintaining a conversation
with you? Unless you have also thrown your gadgets into the
ring, ask yourself what kind of a man invites you out only to
ignore you? Wait, we'll tell you: a jerk.
8. He's Mr. Love-To-Love-Ya, Babee:
We all want an affectionate man.
We want him to fall head over heels in love, to shower us with
attention and demonstrate in dozens of romantic ways that we
are the apple of his eye. But do we want it on the FIRST date?
There is a breed of men who, for reasons
known only to themselves, feel it is their moral obligation
to behave as if every new woman they meet is the only one they
love.
Yes, there is such a thing as "love
at first sight." It could happen to you. But generally
speaking, if fifteen minutes into your date, he says things
like, "If you play your cards right, you could be the next
Mrs. Whoever-I-Am" or "I've been looking for a girl
like you all my life!" it's time to ask yourself whether
you are indeed the Queen of the Universe, able to inspire abject
worship at the drop of a hat (perhaps you are, you vixen!);
or whether this guy is softening you up for a sexual pass. Not
that we would doubt you, dear reader, but the latter is, in
all probability, the correct answer.
One thing you can be sure of: you aren't
the first and will not be the last woman he has said these things
to. Some men (and we know this will come as a shock to you)
will say ANYTHING to get laid.
9. He Has Too Much To Teach You:
You say potato, he says potahto;
you say tomato, he says tomahto. Even worse, he tries to make
you pronounce it HIS WAY. Our advice: call the whole thing off.
Unless you are seeking a Svengali,
beware of men who try to prove to you first that they are intellectually
or otherwise superior, and then attempt to re-educate you to
their liking.
Listen for such telling statements
as "I know what you need." They may sound comforting
on the surface (after all, we are looking for someone to fulfill
our needs), but the underlying logic is that you are the Galatea
to his Pygmalion, and the reason that you need him is because
he thinks that you need him to change your life.
10. He Says He's Mr. Sex Machine:
Could anything be wrong with a
man who craves to give us complete sexual satisfaction in bed?
Yes: he could tell us all about it in vivid language on a first
date.
While sexually explicit language is
not automatically the sign of boorishness it once was, most
of us do not particularly wish to listen to a man extol his
oral sex skills over an introductory meal.
This is really a case of "don't
tell me, show me."
But before you let him--are you supplied
with enough disinfectants to kill every disease known to mankind?
Let's face it: the man who boasts that he is an expert at tantric
tongue techniques probably hasn't been hiding his gift from
the world all these years, has he?
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