Miss Manners Punishes Poor Date Behaviour

Thankfully for everybody who rather likes women having rights and the Pill, those days are over – but dating, that age-old ritual, has now become so totally confused that it would be simpler if somebody simply stood by your side scoring your every move out of 10.



Here, however, Miss Manners steps in to help. Here is RESCU’s list of the most abominable, terrible, no-good, very  bad dating etiquette violations. If you want to make a truly shocking impression, tick them off – but only one or two will guarantee your paramour vanishing to look for somebody more blessed with common sense.

• Demand that your partner pays for everything – and get sniffy if they don’t. Independent woman status means that paying is open for discussion, but it’s not nice to assume you’re being treated.
• Yell about feminism and the rights of the female if your partner opens the door for you.
• Yell about chivalry and the rights of the female if your partner doesn’t open the door for you.
• Wear something completely inappropriate to the venue or occasion. Silk dress on a picnic?  Halter top to a fancy restaurant?  No thanks.
• Accept rubbish gifts without comment, discussion or polite refusal – in fact, slaver over them and then quietly sell them on eBay. This will simply  mean that you’ll get more of the same, and have to explain where all the hideous lingerie you so ‘loved’ has gone.
• Loudly insult the gift-giver or refuse the gift indignantly. Unless they’ve given you something horribly inappropriate, this is never acceptable.
• Get drunk. Particularly if your date doesn’t drink. Particularly if they’re picking up the tab for drinks.
• Order the most expensive thing on the menu while your partner gets a salad, and then insist on splitting the bill evenly or not paying at all.
• Schedule two dates on the same night. This is amateur stuff.
• Inform your competing suitors about each others’ good and bad points. This does not encourage competition – it makes you look like a fool.
• Talk about your exes, your finance problems, your horrible bosses or your invasive medical issues.
• Kick off your shoes in an extremely expensive restaurant, particularly if you haven’t manicured and have been working in the same shoes all day.
• Completely abandon table manners in any place which isn’t tapas or a barbeque.
• Loudly demand a fork in an Asian restaurant, or be otherwise culturally insensitive.
• Once it becomes clear that you have little in common, ask for the number or relationship details of one of their attractive friends.
• Pick a fight about politics, religion or any other topic.  Expressing your opinion is fine, and spirited arguments are good fun, but charging around looking for a fight like a bullish Ann Coulter is not the way to do it.
• Disparage the choices of the suitor and demand to do everything your way.
• Be dishonest about what you want. If you’re looking for a casual fling and your partner brings up marriage immediately, going along with it to be ‘nice’ is nobody’s idea of a good time.
• Pressure your partner for sex.
• Practise ‘negging’ – the Neil Strauss-advocated method of subtly undermining your date in order to make them desire your approval. Nobody with any actual intelligence does this, and whoever it succeeds upon is not an ideal partner anyway.
• Show up late without an apology, a reason and considerable notification beforehand.
• If somebody shows up late WITH an apology, a reason and considerable notification beforehand, get angry, call them names, and rant and rave about their lack of respect. Charming.
• Stand anybody up. This is only acceptable if you have just discovered that you two are related or that your date has a warrant out for his arrest. In any other circumstance, do not cancel without notice and, if possible, try not to cancel at all.

If you manage to avoid all of these faux pas, congratulations – your etiquette is not a shame to our entire generation.

Yours sincerely,

Miss Manners