Please Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Be a Bad Tipper
This goes so far beyond just what I want in a future partner. Nobody should be a bad tipper. Ever. For any reason.
Tonight I was getting drinks with a friend, and I bought the first round. It was a $14 tab and I tipped $2. Pretty standard. Also--IT WAS TWO DOLLARS. That's less than the cost of the smallest latte Starbucks sells. That's eight quarters. Two hundred pennies. This is 2012--two dollars is nothing. But when it came time for my drinking buddy to ante up for the second round (and please keep in mind this is a random acquaintance from college), he paid the same $14 bar tab for our second round, and after the bartender gave him the change--$6 cash all in ones--he SLIPPED EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR BACK INTO HIS WALLET. There was no poor service in this situation. This dude is not an oblivious European. I was aghast, to put it mildly.
I honestly had a hard time keeping the conversation going after that point. I became increasingly obsessed with whatever the fuck the reasoning could possibly be for a 26-year-old MBA student to refuse to leave two dollars for the sad, obese, middle-aged bartender working the night shift at a shitty Irish pub. I thought about calling him out on it, but instead just decided there is absolutely no conceivable reason why this behavior is ever okay, and vowed to never see the douche again.
Yeah, I take this shit seriously.
And if you're sitting there thinking to yourself, "If the service is really bad, I'm leaving a bad tip in order to send a message." Well, heads up, dickbag: Leaving a bad tip as a sign that you were dissatisfied with service is the wrong course of action and generally doesn't lead the tip recipient to change their behavior in the future. Seriously, this person probably makes minimum wage or close to it. If you're patronizing their place of business, chances are, you don't. Fork over that 20% and move along. Oh yeah, Gramps--10% doesn't cut it anymore either.
Let me add: You do not have to be wealthy to date. You can be one broke ass motherfucker and do just fine with the ladies. People do it all the time. You plan picnics in the park with a bottle of wine, find free events and make a day of it, or cook dinner at your place. This is completely acceptable when done the right way. But sure, having a little extra dough each month sure does help when it comes to courting. Think about budgeting your money as a gateway to the booty.
If you're too broke to buy a fancy dinner, do not take me out to dinner. Do something else. Do something within your means. But if you can swing dinner, you must plan for tax, tip, and maybe a taxi if we get sloshed. If you can't afford the whole nine yards, don't go there. Choose a cheaper option. It's totally okay, if you can find a way to make it unforgettable. Which you can. Think a little harder. Be creative. You can do it. I believe in you.
Allow me to clarify: the title of this post is most certainly not "Please Don't Have Tattoos." I'm sure there are several ladies much more square than myself who feel that peeping a tattoo on the body of a prospective lover is akin to learning about a crippling drug habit or a lifetime of angst fueled by parental abandonment issues. But no, much to my father's chagrin, I actually don't have any problems with tattoos--provided they're good ones.
My policy on tattoos has long been that there is a certain tipping point where tattoos on a body go from just being one or three small annoying symbols here and there just for the sake of getting a tattoo (I'm looking at you, sorority girl with one small Chinese character on your low hip) to actually beautiful, meaningful art that just so happens to be on a body. I'm much more attracted to the latter. I'd date the shit out of a guy with no tattoos just as easily as I'd date someone with full sleeves, but I find myself less interested in whatever's in between.
1. Barbed wire encircling any of your limbs. Actually--anything encircling your appendages should be avoided. We're all pretty much in agreement that bicep-ring tattoos haven't been acceptable since Nick Lachey was in a boy band, right? And even then it was gross.
2. Yin-yangs. Unless you're actually somehow involved with an Asian religion or culture that directly relates to this symbol, just go ahead and skip it.
3. Tribal tats. See #2. If you grew up in New Zealand and want to honor your Maori heritage with some ethnic ink, go nuts. If you're a frat dude from Nebraska, think again.
4. Dragons. I have seen them look somewhat cool if they are relatively large, brightly colored, and/or detailed. If it's an all-black dragon that covers one shoulder blade, you know that's gonna fade to blue and look like a tattoo your navy brother did on you in the hull of a submarine (do submarines have hulls?) in 1965 within a couple of years. This is 2012, add some color.
5. Any word, lettering, or phrase, written in large Old English typeface across some part of your body. Depending on the wording and location, I suppose I could come to accept something of this nature, but I tend to feel that the overwhelming majority of these might as well be a letterman's jacket that you wear your whole life, letting people know you were on the Varsity Douche Bag squad. At least you lettered!
6. Really, anything else that is terribly unoriginal and/or small. If you're going to get a tattoo, GET A TATTOO. A real one.
To be honest, #6 is the very reason why I have yet to get a tattoo. I feel like I am one of the three women in this world who attended college in Los Angeles during the early 2000s and escaped un-tramp stamped. I don't want to have an unoriginal tattoo just for the sake of saying I have a tattoo. I don't want to get the word "honesty" written on my wrist, you know, to remind me how important it is to be honest. If I ever do get some ink, I'd like it to be intentional, artistic, thoughtful, and frankly, somewhat large. I don't want to be someone who just kept getting small tattoos for the sake of getting them and now has five tattoos that nobody can see, none of which have any real meaning or personality.
So I beg of you, future partner: should you decide to tattoo yourself--and oh lord, I hope it's not too late--please put some ink on your body that means something, or at least says something, other than "I got drunk in college and this is the result." If you can't make it somewhat large and cool, then just make it cool. But small and lame is kind of the kiss of death in my book.
Alright, so Just to recap--
GOOD:
via re:s-t-a-c-k-s
ACCEPTABLE (If only for the originality and humor--though seriously, what is up with those eyes?!):
I've recently come to the conclusion that if you want to end up with me, you better be an introvert. You better whine about going out to social functions, loathe karaoke, and only dance when completely Tequila-bliterated. It's pretty much settled at this point. You see, I am an extrovert. My sisters as well, extroverts. I'm pretty confident that if--God forbid--any of us were ever in a coma, all you'd have to say is "There is a Golden Girls-themed karaoke night happening tonight, and you can sing as many songs as you want," and consciousness would be regained immediately. For reals.
It just so happens that every time I date someone even remotely extroverted, it doesn't really work out. We either fight for attention, I get annoyed by his constant need for attention (no, there's nothing annoying whatsoever about my constant need for attention, obviously), or I just find him generally irritating for reasons I can't quite explain.
The bummer of it is, when I go out to karaoke, there are always a couple of guys who just KILL IT on the mic. That guy who sings Neil Diamond, but he skips Sweet Caroline and goes straight for Forever in Blue Jeans. Or that guy who sings Raspberry Beret and kinda makes falsetto appealing? That fucking guy. He's probably wearing a jean jacket with a tie, or a pair of burgundy cords, but there's something about him that's sexy. And I say to myself, "Now THAT is the kind of dude I could really be into." But then I think about it for a little bit longer and realize that couples where both people are really into the same really weird thing can tend to be, well, a little weird. I realize that if I ended up with Karaoke Guy, we'd be the Karaoke People, and probably have a Karaoke Wedding, and that would be our thing. And then we'd stop having friends outside of our Karaoke Community, start homeschooling our children solely through song, and end up on an episode of Wife Swap, traded with a straight-laced pair of farmers from Nebraska. And that's when it became clear to me, future partner: I need for you to have your own jam, and I need it to be completely separate from my jam, which is karaoke and wearing silly costumes and dancing badly and generally making a fool out of myself in public.
Also. That brings me to: dancing. I dated a guy not too long ago who told me he "really loves to dance." I got excited by the sound of this at first, because, hell--I LOVE TO DANCE, TOO! But lo and behold, dude danced worse than all the uncles at all the weddings in all the world put together. There I was, drunkenly grinding up on my two best girlfriends while my date gyrated awkwardly a couple of feet away. Honestly, all I wanted was for him to leave me and my girlfriends alone and let us grind in peace. It was in that moment that I realized: dudes who like to dance and sing karaoke can be WAY WORSE than the ones who just politely decline your request that they come out on the town and instead just pass out on the couch with cheeto-stained fingers to an episode of Pawn Stars.
Man oh man, I'm excited about this blog! I hope it doesn't suck. I hope people get it. I hope I don't run out of good ideas for posts. It is currently 1:36 am which is much too late (early?) for any properly-written content, but I can't wait to get some more coherent shit cranked out tomorrow. Huzzah.
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