Following the lines of my last post, I have decided to post a list of things that men will do prior to a date.
- Wash the car. We don’t want you to see the bird crap and rubbish filled car that we normally drive. We will wash it, polish it, vacuum and throw out all the fast food containers and drink cups. The last thing that we want is for you to have to sit in filth. We do it because we care.
- Find our newest/most presentable clothes, wash them, iron them and make them look as good as possible. Sometimes we will even buy new clothes. We know how much pride you take in your appearance and we don’t want to drag you down from a 10 to a 7 just because we look like a slob. If there was a particular clothing combination that we met you in, and it is appropriate for where we are going, we will replicate that combination. It won’t be the same combo, we aren’t that stupid, it will be just close enough that it should remind you of the night we met.
- Take notice of the actual scent of our deodorant etc. Let’s face it, men get smelly. It’s a fact. We sweat more, we often work in manual labour oriented jobs and we stink. Women on the other hand, do not smell. They go to great lengths to smell great at all times. Men own deodorant purely for the purpose of not grossing out their dates. Before we go out we will actually smell all of our deodorants and attempt to find the one that smells the best whilst retaining a manly vibe. No flowery scents of course, but we actually will take notice.
- Shave and a haircut……two bits. Yes, we actually will groom ourselves. I know that I can go for months without a haircut. It just doesn’t bother me that much when it gets long and messy. The day before a date is almost guaranteed to send me to a hairdresser for a trim. The beard is also likely to get trimmed or removed completely. We know how much you hate spikey stubble. Plus, we also secretly hope that our chance of getting a goodnight kiss or more is enhanced by smooth skin and well manicured whiskers.
- We research where we are going. Be it a restaurant, a beach, a park or whatever. We have put more thought into this one location than the Allies did while planning for D-Day. The date location is our Omaha Beach. We want to know every nook and cranny. In fact, rumour has it that D-Day was actually put into action because Churchill wanted to take his lady to a little bistro in Normandy.
- We plan the drive. If we are picking you up, we have 4 different routes to your house, all mapped out, in order of their likelihood to suffer from traffic congestion and the potential for a late arrival. From your house to the location we will have done the same. We have pored over the maps, committing to memory the route, so that we never have to suffer the indignity of asking for directions, or even worse, pulling over to read the map.
- We budget for the evening. History has taught us nothing if we haven’t learned that we should be prepared to cover every expense of the evening. Sure in the politically correct, equality driven world that we live in, a woman can pay for dinner. We would like that. But odds are that we will pay. We like to pay. It makes us feel important. Failure to budget makes us look like fools. We don’t want that, and so we have paid all our bills, put away the money for our car payments, and sacrificed the carton of beer and men’s magazines that we normally buy each week, just to ensure that we have enough money to pay our way. And all of that happens before we even ask you out.
- We clean our house and wash the sheets on the bed. Well, we all know why we do that, don’t we? There is no way that on the off chance we get lucky, we will be bringing you home to see 3 old pizza boxes, a pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the room, and sheets that appear to have been last changed in the last decade. If we don’t get the chance to do the housework and we do get lucky, we suggest that we should go to your house.
- Almost a subset of the last item, but worth mentioning anyway. Our pets get cleaned also. If we have a dog, it gets a bath. A cat gets thrown out because no self respecting man owns a cat. Snakes and spiders are locked away tighter than political prisoner in pre-glasnost Russian Gulags. Nothing will offend or surprise our lady.
- This is probably the most important one. We have spent the entire time that we have known you collecting tidbits of information like a spy. We know your favourite drinks, your favourite food. The internet has been scoured for music that you like so that it can be in the CD player in the car. Even if we hate the music you listen to. If you once mentioned that you really like a particular deodorant or cologne we have bought it, tested it and make sure that we are wearing it. We have a mental list of things not to talk about. An even longer list of things that we shouldn’t do. Don’t be surprised if we remember things about you that you have already forgotten. If it is even minutely linked to you, we remember it, just in case.
