Top 5 Love Lessons from “The Bachelor” (Prince Farming’s Season Premiere)
It’s been a long, grueling wait, but last night we finally got our fix with the live season premiere of ABC’s “The Bachelor”! This season features “Prince Farming” and Bachelorette runner-up, Chris Soules — a guy who’s so deep in the Iowa boondocks, the closest Starbucks is over an hour away! Absolutely bone-chilling. But somehow, the producers were able to find not 20, not 25, but 30 brave women willing to marry him and move there, basically sight (and site) unseen. Let the dating mistakes begin, be made, and be learned from!:
- Never admit in public, let alone to your date, that as an adult you shamelessly live with your mother, don’t know how to cook for yourself, and are effing crazy. In fact, forget about admitting such things, don’t DO such things in the first place if you want to be even remotely dateable. (Ahem, Amanda.)
- Baby Voice + Vocal Fry = an incredibly short shelf life for any potential relationship. Even if this is how you talk naturally (and we are NOT convinced that this sound occurs spontaneously in nature), you must take measures to correct this unholy mutation: vocal coaching, vocal chord surgery, testosterone treatments, etc. (You know who you are.)
- Using gimmicks on a first date to make yourself memorable often seems desperate and pathetic, rather than creative and quirky. Don’t try so hard to separate yourself from the pack, just be your sincere, genuine self. If a situation naturally arises for you to demonstrate your singing ability, your breakdancing skills, or your cadaver tissue excavation, great! But don’t force it. Quick rule of thumb: if you require props for first dates, you’re doing it wrong. Exception to the rule: small, heartfelt tokens may — we said, may — endear your date to you, but the bigger the prop or the more performative it makes you, the worse off you’re going to be perceived by said date (and the rest of the nation, if they happen to be watching).
- We’ve said it a thousand times before, we’ll say it again: Alcoholically speaking, pace yourself on a date! A drink or two — or even three when the date lasts until the freakin’ sun comes up — is fine to calm your nerves, slightly loosen inhibitions and give yourself a little liquid confidence. But please don’t get sloshed on your dates. It’s not safe: you could get sexually assaulted, you could fall from a high height, you could embarrass yourself on national television, you could suffer the wrath of 29 judgy women all vying for the attention of the man you’re dating who will happily and publicly flatten your character with a steamroller!
- The limit on dirty jokes you can tell on a first date is ONE. Even then, we highly recommend testing the waters first before you drop the bomb, i.e. don’t let it be the very first thing out of your potty mouth. We’re all for a good crotch joke, but knowing when, where and how often is key. As with alcohol and first-date tongue, moderation rules.
