Things not to say on a date

Last week sometime I ran into Linda's friend PCE at a friend's house. Now I had met PCE before at Happy Hours here and there and always thought she was pretty in a classy sort of way, but she was also very reserved and quiet. We started talking and decided to go to the Richmond Arms and talk more. It was a nice time.

Since then we’ve been on two dates. One was a dinner/movie, and one was a night at a bar. I'm starting to see her bad side. When I went to her place to pick her up, I called her and she told me the code to get into the gate. It didn’t work, and I called her again. “Gee, I thought you were smart. And you can’t work the gate code? Nevermind, I’ll come down there and let you in.” Calling me stupid isn't a good way to win me over. When she came to the gate I stopped her from opening it and made her watch me put in the code she had given me. “Oh,” she said with a shrug. “I must have given you the wrong code.” And? An apology would do nicely right about here. Nothing. I shrugged the whole thing off. Maybe I'm being too sensitive.

We talked on the phone tonight for a while and she was asking me about how I got into teaching. She can’t understand how anyone in their right mind would be a teacher since the money is so low. She asked me about the time I changed my major to History and she asked me “Didn’t your dad or anyone counsel you to stay in Engineering?” When I told her about how the other engineering majors teased me when I changed, she said something to the effect that she’d believe it, as if I’d made a poor decision.

Let this be a lesson to you women out there who read this--1) never belittle a guy you like, even in jest, and 2) never try to make him feel like he made the wrong decisions in his career. You certainly won't win his affection or make him look forward to seeing you again.