Valentine’s Day is on the way, and it’s the perfect time to profess your love to that hottie in your discussion section. You know, the one you’re always looking for at the beginning of class, the one who distracts you so badly that you fill in the wrong Scantron bubbles.
Ah, there’s nothing like being drunk on the rush of a secret crush.
“It’s a stupid junior high thing, but it makes you all tingly inside,” said Becca Eisenberg, a junior history major.
Transforming that tingle into a date can be challenging.
There’s always the option of catching that special someone off guard. This strategy isn’t foolproof, but it works on certain people.
Take, for example, Sarah Holmes, a senior multimedia design major.
“I want someone to come up and grab me and say ‘I’ve been totally obsessed with you for, like, a year,” she said.
It takes an extremely bold person to be so straightforward, or at least a person who has consumed a large volume of alcohol. But there’s nothing wrong with a milder approach.
“Offer her a flower and ask if she’ll smile for you,” said junior psychology major Aaron Schartman. “It’s worked for me twice.”
Such suave tactics can be effective; however, any last minute nervousness can lead to disaster. Losing composure may leave you looking about as smooth as a pineapple.
When in doubt, there’s always the tried-and-true method of offering a simple compliment. Recently, an amateur Don Juan used this approach on Lynette Werner, a senior majoring in psychology and sociology. “He came up to me and told me I was beautiful,” Werner said.
“Do you know how good that made me feel? Unfortunately, it wasn’t my boyfriend.”
There are endless ways to express your love. Be enthusiastic. Be creative. Be confident.
But most of all, if you get that first date, don’t screw up. “Talk about her 70 percent of the time, you 30 percent,” said senior art history major Erik Ash. He said a casual dinner and a few drinks are the makings of a great first date.
Good conversation is key. “Girls really like to talk about themselves,” Ash said, “and listening to them makes you seem gentleman-ly.”
Being polite belongs in anyone’s game plan, but take care not to go overboard. Don’t knock anyone over trying to hold a door open. Avoid frightening a date with extravagant gifts, especially if the person recently discovered you exist.
Gifts can be intimidating, Eisenberg and Werner agreed. Use extreme caution when expressing passion with sappy inanimate objects.
“Roses are scary,” Eisenberg said.
Remember that few first dates end in marriage, aside from rare cases in which a large volume of alcohol was consumed.
With this in mind, note that most people don’t enjoy listening to a life story on the first date. These encounters often turn into grueling therapy sessions.
“You should say ‘I like to work out, and I have a dog.’ Stuff like that,” Eisenberg said, “not ‘one time when I was in second grade…’.”
If these pieces of advice are news to you, highlight each useful quote, clip out the article and keep it with you on your date. When in need of help, simply excuse yourself and review the article in the rest room. This way you’ll never find yourself dulling the pain of heartbreak with a large volume of alcohol.
“If they’re interesting, it should flow naturally,” Eisenberg said. “First you start talking about Spanish, then you talk about politics and pretty soon you’re having sex on the couch.”