Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to First Date Club***

The first rule of First Date Club is that you do not talk about other dates.
The second rule of First Date Club is that you do not talk about other dates.
The third rule of First Date Club: If someone yells “Stop!” or goes limp, the date is over.*
The fourth rule of First Date Club: Only two people to a date.
The fifth rule of First Date Club: One date at a time, folks!
The sixth rule of First Date Club: Nice shirt, nice shoes.
The seventh rule of First Date Club: Dates will go on as long as they have to.

And the eighth and final rule of First Date Club: If this is your first date together, you have to make each other laugh!

I know from long experience that dating could sometimes benefit from a little subversive activity, so I thought I'd put this out here. It began back when the movie Fight Club came out, as a sort of joke among the AOL San Diego Chat Room misfits. It still makes me smile (well, smirk, really) because my experience with post-divorce dating has been pretty thoroughly disappointing.

Don't think that I'm bitter...I'm actually not. I'm just so totally over the whole First Date Thing. And everything that comes before the First Date. I want to skip right to the fourth or fifth date, but I'm guessing that most women would be a little put off if I introduced myself and suggested that we meet at either her place or mine to make dinner together and curl up on the couch to watch a DVD.

Most people (including me, for the most part) expect things to happen in a certain order, and it throws us off our game if we have to improvise.

One of the reasons I don't do well with dating is that for many women (in California, at least) there's a schedule for things: First date, nice kiss. Second date, deeper kissing/moderate petting. Third date, sex.

I don't work that way!

I've always sort of marched to the beat of my own regiment of pipes and drums, and I tend to want to draw things out a little. Unless our third date has gone on for an extraordinary length of time -- say, a week or so -- I'm not likely to be comfortable having sex on the third date. Or the fourth. Sure, if you turn me on and lead me into the bedroom, I will not turn you down because I am male and I think with my penis just as much as the next hairy, fat guy...but I am likely to be a little embarrassed by this, and will absolutely feel pressured to perform magnificently (which, of course, I can, but generally not when I am feeling pressured to do so). The thought that the woman I'm shagging might at any moment be deciding that it's worth a couple dates with someone new for the outside chance that she'll find a guy with a better shot at hitting just the right spot pretty much takes all the pleasure out of third date coitus for me.

It's just that it seems so...expected, you know?

These days, I'd rather really get to know any woman I go out with. I want a whole series of "really? me, too!" moments. I want to know what makes her feel beautiful. I want to really nail down what makes her laugh. I want her to introduce me to her friends and have to say "no" when they ask, "So, have you slept with him, yet?" and I want them to articulate the next question for her: "Why not?" I want to be friends, to include her in my circle of friends and have her include me in hers. I want to show her my lunatic side and joyfully discover some hidden talent of hers, like spoon hanging or armpit farting.

Of course, all of these things remain in the future for members of the First Date Club.

* This has never happened on any of my first dates. I'm just saying, is all. Safety first.

***My deepest apologies to Tyler Durden.