My past is a graveyard of horrible first dates.
And as I take a walk down memory lane I see the dashed dreams, the demolished expectations and the crippling depression surrounding those dates.
But, as a happily married man, I eventually figured things out (thanks to you, brainwashing!)
I am here today to share the harrowing and (hopefully) humor-filled lessons I picked up along the way.
Hope this helps!
Here are the sad and depressing lessons I learned on first dates
1. Meeting her for an early morning aerobics class and then being comically out-of-shape and disgustingly sweaty within 5 minutes is not good.
2. Being overly subtle and vague about the date by calling it “hanging out” or “getting together” or “briefly being in the same room at the same time this coming Friday” in the hopes that it will trick or fool her into seeing you as a future romantic partner won’t work (neither is your insistence on showing off your non-existent “gun” or wearing cologne 24–7).
3. Never show up for a first date wearing a silver unitard or a toga outfit unless you received a signed and dated consent form a minimum of 24 hours prior to the date.
4. Talking too much about how “painfully single” you’ve been for “as long as I can remember— 3 years, 5 months and 23 days to be exact” — almost always leads to her remembering she either left her stove on, she forgot to wash her hair or that she has an ailing grandmother in the hospital.
5. Don’t go out to eat any food that requires loud slurping, may leave huge embarrassing stains on your shirt or cause you to scream loud, frustrated swears due to your inability to open it.
6. You shouldn’t take her dancing and then refuse to dance for religious and/or political and/or safety for all present reasons.
7. Though it may seem like a thoughtful gift, presenting her with a big bag of citrus fruits to help her “maintain a healthy vitamin C intake as I’ve noticed it’s a bit low these days” is weirder than appreciated.
8. Don’t wear big bushy fake eyebrows despite how funny your roommate and your dog thought they were.
9. If she insists on bringing a friend along and that friend is either a lawyer, forensic investigator or someone who doesn’t say a word and just sits in the corner, arms crossed glaring at you, that is a bad sign.
10. First dates should never include the following: pretending you are a mime trapped in a box, sharing of controversial opinions such as being pro-dolphin hunting or against child labor laws, and heated phone conversations with your mom or accountant.
11. While it seems like a good idea, completely scripting out your opening dialogue together, including intricately created props, stage directions, and prerecorded sound effects, usually falls flat unless the audience you’ve paid to show up laughs particularly hard.
12. Showing up at her apartment unannounced and out of breath wearing your sweat pants and a t-shirt at 6 pm because at 5:45 pm she suggested on the phone “we should hang out sometime” may come across as desperate and a bit creepy (especially if she never gave you her address).
13. Suggesting an activity that may involve some touching is a bad idea if that activity is mixed martial arts and she is a black belt (this also applies to carrying a bag of raw meat and holding her hand while she walks her pet wolf).
14. Hanging out at a coffee shop for her entire 8-hour shift making winky faces while she works as a barista is actually harassment and “not even close to a date, Casanova” according to the friendly, neighborhood police officer.
15. Going into an in-depth analytical description complete with pie graphs, handouts and an exit quiz on astronomy, quantum mechanics or advanced String Theory is, in all likelihood, a major miscalculation, nerd.
16. Whatever you do, don’t perform magic tricks. 
