How To Avoid The Exhausting Planning And Preparation That Goes Into Making A Second Date

:::Per Tremble:

Dear 37 Year-Old Guy Sitting Next to Me at the Coffee Shop Right Now Who is Clearly on a Blind Date:

Forgive me for eavesdropping, but this is rather important. I am not the smoothest Steve McQueen on the planet, but my very basic inter-personal skills tell me that you are making a series of extremely obvious first date errors. If I may:

1. You are at a coffee shop with a woman who, in a very objective sense, is better looking than you. No offense, but I am looking at you right now and thinking the probability of this happening is pretty good, and has probably played out that way many times in the past. Perhaps you could have offset the imbalance of your superficial beauty by, I don't know, not wearing blousy black cotton shorts. The contrast between their dark fabric and the cadaverous pale flesh of your legs is nearly as striking as your obviously poor judgment.
   
   
2. While we're at it, did you know you're in a coffee shop wearing inline skates? Well, you are. And she isn't. This means the coffee shop was your agreed-up meeting place; not "The United Skates of America" or "Miniature Pylon Cone Rollerblade Alley."
   
   
3. Do not pull out your ceramic one-hitter within the first 15 minutes of conversation, or even the next or last 15 minutes. It's sort of presumptuous. Your date was wearing a skirt, high-heeled sandals, and a conservative short-sleeve top. She was not wearing a "University of Cheech & Chong" t-shirt and "Legalize It" athletic headband.
   
   
4. While we're on the subject of drugs – and it appears we'll be there for a while – no one cares about how much more awesome the hash is in the Czech Republic. Again, you're not on a date with the ghost of Alistair Crowley. This means small talk like, "after 6 hits while locked in my room meditating, I basically blew a fuse," is not exactly the combination to the master vault at U.S. Pussy Savings & Loan.
   
   
5. OK, let's just get it out of the way. Do not offer your date a hit of weed at 3:10pm, at a coffee shop. Even if she joins you, so as not to appear "square" (your word, thank you), the ends do not justify the means. [update: she strode outside with him, then asked him to return to the coffee shop as she was embarrassed by the whole ridiculous affair.]
   
   
6. Wow. Leave your balls alone. Seriously, holy cow. Those are your balls. You guys are sitting, maybe, three feet apart. Jesus, man. There is not a dating guidebook in the world that would even conceive of writing a chapter called "Don't Play With Your Balls (on the First Date)" because any mammal with the gift of literacy would not even consider this a "Do I or Don't I?" kind of question. Wow. There you go again.
   
   
7. Don't be so bald. OK, that's not your fault, and I'll probably be joining you soon, but if you're going to be so bald please don't draw attention to it with a button on your messenger bag that says, "I'M NOT BALD. I'M JUST GETTING MORE HEAD."

And, for balance, here is a quick memo to your date. Please do not feel you have to indulge his half-witted drug-dominated conversation by asking him a question that allows him to reply, "Define transformative."

P.S. They left together. I expect the world will spin off its axis any day now.

Accidental Hedonist: Chile Rellenos

It is good to be without vices,but it is not good to be without temptations.
-- Walter Bagehot