Things You Should Never, Ever Say On Dates

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“Your romantic, blissful holidays together, dates to the same bar you’d take her, detailing why you broke up without prompting – all awful.“

This actually happened to me on a date last week.

Me: “This is a nice bar, I didn’t even know it existed.”

Him: “Ah, well, I used to come here with my ex. We had our first date here.”

Me: “…….”

Later on.

Him: “I love New York! Becca and I went for our first anniversary, actually.”

And later still.

“I hated Anchorman. So not funny.”

Enough. Not only are you clearly still obsessed with your ex-girlfriend (who, I’m sure, couldn’t wait to escape your clutches) but you have terrible taste in films. Goodbye.

I don’t know how make this clearer: Do not gush/ discuss/ mention your ex-girlfriend on a date. Ever. Your romantic, blissful holidays together, dates to the same bar you’d take her to, detailing why you broke up without prompting — all awful. Talking about your blissful past relationships makes us paranoid. It tells us that you’re not over her yet, that we’re wasting our time and will never live up to her. Remember that TV advert where a couple’s sittting on a sofa and she’s wearing her ex-boyfriend’s oversized jumper? And he smirks: “Ha. Your ex must’ve been massive.” And she replies with a raised eyebrow and a faraway look in her eye: “Mmmm, he was.” It’s the male version of making us feel like that.

A quick ring around of my girlfriends threw up some other unacceptable one-liners. I hope you find this helpful.

“You’re just not my type”
Whilst I’m normally an advocate of honesty, that doesn’t mean you have to be quite so honest all the time. My friend Natalie was set up on a blind date by a married couple she knew. Their keenness to get her coupled-up, just like them, overlooked the fact that their choice of man was appalling. After arriving late and not apologising, he talked about his job for half an hour whilst Nat listened on politely, trying to sneak a word in. The boorish oaf then declared that he didn’t usually ‘go’ for brunettes like her. Should she be grateful for this? Even if you don’t fancy your date, etiquette dictates that you keep opinions to yourself.

“Let’s split the bill”
A modern girl may insist on going Dutch, but a gentleman always offers to foot the bill. And, for the first couple of dates, insists.

“You really shop at Aldi?”
Pretentiousness gets you nowhere, boys. Just this weekend a friend of mine unintentionally found herself caught in the firing line of a scathing bombardment of middle class snobbery. A fleeting comment about Aldi was met with indignant criticism. “You don’t shop there, do you?” he asked, genuinely mortified. “Um, well, now and again…” her voice trailed off. For the rest of the awkward date he made patronising quips about her style and shopping habits. In a word: Douchebag.

And, in the interests of equality, here are the three things you’re allowed to be annoyed at her for saying…

“I’m on a diet”
With my girlfriends, I’m a calorie-counting obsessive, I admit. But such intimate analysis of a meal is wasted on men. I wouldn’t blame you for finding this unacceptable.

“OMG, LOVE Twilight”
Again, only amongst girlfriends or pre-pubescent relatives is such a statement appropriate for a girl to say. This is legitimate cause for an on-the-spot dumping.

“Who’s Julian Assange again?”
A season ticket to the footy isn’t a mandatory girlfriend requirement. A basic grasp of current affairs, however, is.