HGG, my girlfriend of the past nine months, released me into the wild a little while ago (it was really quite touching; she was humming "Born Free" as she opened the door of the cage) (and the fact that I employed that particular metaphor should indicate to you why she was so eager to give me the freedom that is my birthright) (not unlike the serial parenthetical; my motto is "Live digressive or--man, Sarah Palin is just fucking whacktastic, isn't she?"), so I will sooner or later be indulging in the soul-killing sport we like to call "dating." (Because that's what it's fucking called. Duh.)

            (Just incidentally, taking up that sporting metaphor, HGG did say, in the course of restoring me to my untamed state, "It's not you, it's me," which, oh, newbie, rookie mistake--and she is a rookie, as I am her first boyfriend since her 25-year marriage ended; you just hate to see that kind of thing mar an otherwise perfect performance on the breakup field, court, or rink.)

            Some months ago, my friend M (she's a distant relative of Kafka's K and James Bond's Q) and I had dinner. She'd completed her mandatory court-ordered period of not-dating after her divorce and was considering getting out into the dating pool, diamond or ring. (Fine, I'm scraping bottom a little with the sports metaphors.) (And okay, it wasn't court-ordered, unless you consider her other friends and me and her own sense of sanity a court, and I do, my favorite kind: a kangaroo court.) (Seriously, I have a costume for just such occasions, which includes a fur-lined pocket filled with a teensy little joey.) She wanted the advice of someone who had not gone pro in dating, but only because he wanted to compete in the 2012 summer Olympics. (That someone was me. You got that, right?) (And I guess that was another sports metaphor. I might be coming down with something.) I've been dating since my separation from the sucking chest wound that was my marriage, 15 or so years now, and have gotten quite good at it. Mind you, there are lots of other things I'd rather be good at: staying in a relationship longer than a year or two, self-fellating (I'd never leave the house), possibly macramé. (I know: not strictly relevant, but I suffer from a lack of plant holders.) But no, dating it is, and I have learned a few lessons about dating, and, as M asked, I shared them with her.

            She, that very night, called a good friend of hers and started dating him. They're very happy. You're welcome, M. Dating, like my soon-to-be-debuted new sport, Deathball!™, is not for the squeamish, though there are fewer charred and eviscerated corpses in dating. Slightly fewer, anyway.

            So, what is it that I've learned in my dating career that led M to run screaming from the table? (In reality, the screaming could have been on account of the cockroaches that I released in a--vain--attempt to get out of paying for dinner.) I'm glad you asked. (And by "you" I mean of course the you that lives in my head.) (And how is the little terrarium I set up for you? Getting enough crickets? I have some extra cockroaches if you want.) I learned how dating works, and why, if you do it long enough, it will render you unfit for the company of any form of life more advanced than a corporate CEO. I'm only talking here about hetero dating, which is all I'm actually familiar with. I'm sure there are similar idiotic strictures in gay and lesbian dating, but I have not inquired of my gay and/or lesbian friends, because of how I've got my own problems.

            I learned that dating is for dickheads. Especially if you do it right.

            So why date? Many people don't. Trekkies. Serial killers. Log Cabin Republicans. (This was a Jeopardy question yesterday.) Well, largely because, Hollywood to one side (and Bollywood!) (I just took a few minutes to stage a production number with sitars and Indian dancing in my head), your perfect darling isn't going to fall into your lap. You will not meet cute. If you didn't meet him or her in high school or college, maybe grad school, bzzzzzt! you lose! I don't care how many dudes Carrie got to choose from in Sex And the City (and even after several years I would like to opine: that show sucked ass that hasn't even been invented yet) just by being her own cute-ass self, you will not. It's like having a job in our era of late-stage capitalism: you don't want to do it, but you also don't want to dine out at Chez Dumpster either. Dating is a means to an end: not ending up alone in the gutter with dogs pissing in your face. (Dogs might be optional.) (Nope: the dogs are in. Sorry.) And so, we plunge in. To dating. Not the dumpster. Although, you know, suit yourself.

            As with any dickheads, dating dickheads regard money as a fraught issue, especially on a first date; it connotes far more than it denotes. Like it or hate it, on the first date he pays. M's reaction to this was, "But I make a good living! What if he makes less than I do? That is just wrong!" All good points. So? This is dating, not the EEOC. Here is what he hears when you insist, "I will pay half:" "Please may I never see you again?" You're settling up, paying off your account. (You can certainly offer to pay, as a gesture of good will, and clearly insincerely; if he accepts, he doesn't want to see you again.) Furthermore, since he has determined that you are not interested, he won't call you again, unless he is one desperately needy loser, so if he does call and if you accept another date, you are about to embark on the most thrilling fun-packed ride of your life, except for the thrilling and fun-packed parts.

            Now, you, modern empowered woman of the future, could certainly call him. If you're not a dickhead but a schmuck.

            Never fucking call him. Gah! Did your mother teach you nothing? Call him and now you are the desperately needy loser, and he is thinking, "Wow, I'm about to embark on the most thrilling fun-packed ride of my life, except for the thrilling and fun-packed parts."

            Does this make sense? It does not. Personally, I would love to have the taking-the-initiative part in dating shared. I would also love for my city to have Veuve Cliquot fountains but it does not. Is this a universal? No. There are exceptions, because we're talking about human beings, not atoms in a test tube. Is this by far the likeliest outcome? Well, I'll just answer with one of those snappy quotes I love so well, this one from Damon Runyon: "the race is not to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that's the way to bet."

            Another dickheaded thing you figure out soon enough about dating is that the first date should always be something quick, cheap and easily exitable. Set a time limit and stick to it, even if you like the person--in which case there will be more dates and you won't have the ever-increasing-with-your-blood-alcohol-level chance to fuck it up-- and especially if you don't. Why? Because it won't get better. Let me tell you about UFO girl…who had formerly been a Jehovah's Witness. I knew some of this when I agreed to a first date at a bar just down the street from me (so why did I go? Well, she was kind of cute), but after 45 minutes with her, during which time she'd explicated her research into aliens who look just like us and live amongst us (Hey, Glenn Beck! Show us your yellow-y cat-eyes!), I had a much clearer picture, and my chief concern at that point was: Would she follow me the short distance to my home? Or perhaps abduct me to her waiting mothership and anal-probe me? I've been anal-probe-free for years now (I have a chip) and would like to remain so.

            (She did ask me about a second date before I left. I told her I would be quite busy through, oh, say, my death, or the year 2525, whichever came first.) (She assured me the invading alien fleet would be here by 2016, after which she would be quite busy, and, disappointed but plucky, adjusted her tinfoil hat and rode off into the sunset.)

            Also, gentlemen (well, male dickheads), perhaps you, as I do, enjoy fine dining. Perhaps you are thinking, I will impress her with my taste in choosing this restaurant for our first date. Perhaps you can afford to take a first date to a nice restaurant.

            Don't.

            This is one of those things that you can do, but you should not, not unlike my Pharmaceuticals Of Many Lands membership. I was a late-starter at dating, having spent my 20s married, so I didn't know this in my mid-30s, and I would indeed take first dates to dinner at just those kinds of places--places I actually want to go. (I had not yet achieved dickheadedness.) I like eating out, I like good food and snappy service and linen tablecloths. Little did I know that women perceive this as trying too hard, trying to buy them, showing off. I told one of my foodie friends, who has been married since college, about this recently, and he assured me he would have made the same mistake, so paleo-Floyd (it was before I stood erect--shut up--or tamed fire) (aww, what a cute fire: roll over! fetch!) was not uniquely dumb, but I do cringe a bit at the memory. First dates are a glass of wine or a cup of coffee (though coffee dates are for wimps; plus I'm funnier and more attractive the drunker you are); dinners come later, if there is a later. Go out to eat with your friends. You'll enjoy it more, since there won't be that question of whether or not you'll get laid. Unless you're that kind of friends.

            Speaking of which: if you sleep with someone on a first date you will never see them again. Women know this, but it works for men too. (Sometimes it's the only way to get rid of someone.) The mystery's gone, the challenge, the curiosity. If you hope to see them again, stay out of bed. If not, well, hell, pile on. Erm, so to speak.

            Just so you know that the dating prospect isn't completely bleak, once you actually start dating someone seriously (e.g., you begin to discuss phenomenology or the future of Canadian agriculture), you can stop being these hideous dickheads and start making your own rules about who pays and when, who can call, and all of that. You can start being yourselves and with any luck, yourselves will get along. (I hear that happens.) But--and unlike mine, it's a big giant but--you're not getting to that point unless you do the dating song-and-dance (and there is an actual dating song-and-dance; it's a combination of the frug and a soft-shoe, and quite moving in a rockabilly/opera kind of way). So, dickheads of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your Friday evenings, which now that Dollhouse has been cancelled, who cares? Well, and your self-respect and possibly your mind, but you weren't using those, were you?