How Do you Date Anyone?

Seriously, how do you date anyone? I know, it seems like a ridiculous question, and I suppose it would be for almost anyone else but the mysterious process whereby you go from asking a girl to dinner or a movie to dating her on a regular basis and having her introduce you as her boyfriend is completely foreign to me.

The movies always make it look so easy, like guy meets girl, they kiss, they're in bed, and all of sudden being chased for their life by the Terminator or someone else and by the end of the movie an hour later they are in love and it is clear they are going to be married or do by the films closing credits.

I think the main problem for me is there is no clear highlighted roadmap on how to get from point a to point b. I usually end up turning left and falling off the cliff next to the Coyote from Warner Bros. cartoons.

Up till the point when I was in my early 20's I was either doing something entirely different or girls at that age just recognize when a guy asks you to dinner its not because he thinks you would make really great friends.

My main problem is a complete inability to go for the goodnight kiss at the end of the night which proves to the girl that its a date and puts you at least on good footing to a successful relationship versus the wierd quasi nova world that I live in when I take girls out.

I remember there was this one Seinfeld episode where this "friend" discussion took place and they were grilling George on the verbage he used to ask out the girl, "Did you say go out, or hang out?" As if this small slip of the phrase would plant the seed in the girls mind about what kind of night it was intended to be.

Obviously I was convinced that it was because ever since I have tried to avoid like the plague the phrase hang out when I am clearly interested in them.

My second problem after the lack of a kiss is a faded memory is getting it together and explaining to this girl that I actually like her. Once you do this, you are telling her in no uncertain terms that at some point in the future you would like to have sex with her on a regular basis.

You can see why this is especially scary for both parties.

Clearly the real decision making part needs to be happening on the girl's end to prevent this kind of flailing in the wind and again in movies often does with charismatic leads like Zooey Deschanel who often flirts onscreen with no uncertain intentions like in the recent movie Hot Tub Time Machine where she tells John Cusack "Hey you could do something awesome like talk to this girl you just met"

Those are just some of the regular difficulties that I used to experience in a pre emergency room world, now I also have to do deal with a stomach wound and a constantly leaking bag full of shit and a completely uncertain future.

Frankly, I can't imagine when a good time to mention any of those things are to a girl.

Probably, right after the introduction wouldn't be a good idea.

Hi, I'm Joshua and I'm recovering from emergency stomach surgery.

Oh you poor thing. Do you feel bad?

Only all the time.

Yeah. That's how I should do it.

And there's another secret I'm going to let you guys in on. I'm currently having these troubles with a girl right now that I've been out in public places with a few times and its obvious that I should apologize for the complete lack of kissing or saying how much I like her.

Texting it to her seems like a poor solution.

Explaining it to her over a cup of coffee seems better.

Getting her to read this article seems like the best thing possible because there is absolutely no way I could explain all that without fumbling vocally and looking like I swallowed a biscuit.

Also there is no way I'm naming names. I'll probably get her brother to read it.

Historically I'm at my best with women in the writing process, and since the internet has made letter writing seem quaint to the point of being ridiculous and snobbish this is probably it.

Also.

The final episode of Trailor Park Life is right above us! Unfortunately, my normal mechanism of writing out the panels wont work as well today because each panel has 2 sets of dialogue because there is a television playing in the background so I will write "tv" before the tv dialogue so as to be less confusing.

But I will try!

Panel 1: (tv)On tonights episode of Unsolved Mysteries (blah..blah) What happened?

Panel 2: (tv)Missing people....blah. You know what? I can really relate to that show

Panel 3: I mean like what happened to all of my beer? (tv)...still missing

Panel 4: Honey you remember that party last night? (tv) the search continues

Panel 5: ...Oh yeah. (tv)coming up next

Panel 6: (tv) Another mystery solved by our faithful viewers.