Let’s get right down to it. As a man, dating is a health hazard. The entire process will leave you battered, beaten, and damn near death, if you’re not doing it right. Most women have no idea about it, but during the course of courtship, we men must constantly take drastic but subtle actions to preserve our standing good health.
For example, when we don’t call you it’s not because we don’t care about you. It’s just that listening to all the not-quite-exhilarating events of your daily existence can actually kill us. Seriously, boredom can kill you. Some guy somewhere did research on it. Look it up. Not to say that you’re personally boring, ladies. It’s just that we men are a superstitious lot, and when we hear irrefutable scientific proof passed along from a friend of a friend at a poker game, we tend to take that information to heart. So that’s why we don’t call you. Not to mention the fact that men are innately nervous of developing smartphone-shaped tumors in our brains.
Also, when we scoop up the dinner check before your eyes can glance upon the total, it’s not just because we’re being overly generous. This musculoskeletal elbow-pivot motion is actually a long-known preventative measure against blue-balls. As we reach for the bill with one hand, and our wallet with the other, a manly yogic balance is achieved which releases a mild amount of endorphins that will later block the horrible side-effects of excessive turgidity after we’ve spent a half hour making out with you on your couch. As with any good stretch, the more we do it, the more natural it looks to the casual observer, and the less likely we will be driving home later nursing the wicked, throbbing aftermath that is the testicular equivalent of Chernobyl.
We also do a lot of physical suffering just to be seen in your presence, like having to suffer through a romantic comedy movie when we really just feel like watching Jason Statham drive a motorcycle through rush hour traffic while shooting down an Army helicopter with a bazooka and uttering a classic one liner like, “Your flight’s been delayed… indefinitely.” But instead, we suffer—both mentally and physically— through two and a half hours of Ryan Gosling making love to the camera with that sickening arched-eyebrow stare of his. Yes, romantic comedies are like chicken noodle soup for a woman’s soul, but for a man, it has the exact opposite effect, and can lead to depression, nausea, vomiting, and stage 4 Lymphoma. It’s just basic science.
Last, let’s not forget the act of being introduced to a woman’s overly protective friends for the first time, which is akin to being driven into a back alley in Harlem wearing nothing but a Confederate flag and told to ‘go make friends.’ It is possibly the only time in existence when the phrase “if you hurt my best friend I will end your miserable life” can be uttered without landing you in prison, and it sure can add a lot of unnecessary stress to a man’s already complicated life. And it’s not even the threat of violence that is detrimental to a man’s wellbeing. Like a modern day Medusa, an angry woman’s death glare can turn a man to stone or even worse, kill him. Scientifically speaking, lasers may be able to cut through diamonds, but a woman’s stare can cut through a man’s soul.
In a recent study conducted by 4 uneducated, highly intoxicated men at a football tailgate party, it was discovered that 100% of all men who engage in the act of dating will end up dying. One hundred percent. The numbers don’t lie, folks. So we as men have to be extra careful, because sure, that vixen smiling at a man from across the bar might be genuinely interested in him… but she might also be silently plotting his death.
