So here we are once again. It’s six days until Valentine’s and you’re still dateless for the big day. But we won’t let this be yet another year where you’re watching Youtube videos of cute cats while the rest of the world rides the monorail to romance-town (and maybe gets a little mono, too). All we have to do is be fast and be aggressive.
Now, my mother always said you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. But statistically, you catch the most flies with fly paper manufactured with high-friction adhesive and fly pheromones because it’s a calculated, streamlined fly death machine. You need to be the flypaper of the dating world (this applies doubly if your ideal mate is Jeff Goldblum). What follows are three tips designed to do just that. So sit back, strap in, and rest assured my friends: these are the Glengarry leads.
1. Date your Exes
What could be better than a date whose most intricate flaws and personal failings you already know? You’ll never want for dinner conversation. Dating your ex is the McDonald’s of romantic entanglements; sure, it may not be what you really want to put in your mouth, but at least you already know what’s on the menu. Pro tip: don’t do it too often because, just like McDonald’s, with excess comes stress-retention so strong, the resultant death by cancer will seem like a blessing. Another caveat is in order as well. Though returning to the familiar landscape of a past relationship can be comforting, you should also pass over this tip for any relationship that went so poorly that your paramour-no-more actually changed their sexual orientation as a response, which has happened to me more than your average bear. That’s right boys and girls, I’m the El Paso, Texas of sexual questioning.
But if that experience has taught me anything, it’s this: dating an ex is like riding a bicycle. You never forget how to do them. Also, if Lance Armstrong is a lesson, drugs may help. Case in point of why dating an ex works: Rihanna. If she can forgive Chris Brown, then you can look the other way on his lack of ambition and the occasional wet towel on the bed. After all, it’s only for one Valentine’s night.
2. Date like a Rogue State
What do middle school boys and the leaders of North Korea have in common? No, it’s not just that their Pyongyang is starting to notice the other girls’ demilitarized zones. It’s also that they get attention from potential partners through intimidation. Consider this: when little Johnny is jonesing for sugar from Tina the Tease, he sometimes plods onto the playground and pulls her pigtails. When North Korea wants an older, developed Western democracy to notice it, it threatens total annihilation through nuclear holocaust. So really, they’re not that different. (Bonus points if you also noticed that both teenage boys and North Korea will use just about anything as an excuse for a “missile launch,” if you know what I mean).
The leaders of North Korea have mastered an essential secret to fail proof flirtation, and that is walking the fine line between sexily sincere empty threats (like promising to send him and whole family to a forced labor camp if he won’t go out with you) and out-and-out acts of war (any comments about a girl’s weight). A good lover knows that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. And sometimes that means kidnapping a date to jumpstart your fledgling-film industry. So get ready to have a date so passionate it’s guaranteed to create refugees. It’ll be Kim-Jong Un-believably hot.
[Pacific Rim joke redacted.]
3. Smitten by the Smiter: Making God do your dirty work.
Friends, Tom Cruise came from Syracuse, and you’re kind of near Syracuse. And if you’re reading this article instead of the latest, greatest work of literary self-love by Franzen of Foer, it’s probably because you can’t tell the difference between a real argument and one based on fluffy allusions to proximate geography. So allow me to continue….
In 2004, when Tom Cruise was conspicuously not dating a woman and thus what anthropologists and single ladies call “available,” the church of Scientology auditioned several of its most bodacious believers to be Cruise’s new girlfriend. In the end, he settled on Nazanin Boniadi.
“You see, he wanted a new main squeeze. So at the beginning he was real sweet on her. He even bought her a hoop skirt when they went down to the drive-in. I mean, they were going real steady,” a stereotype from the ‘50s said. “Say, what’s the big idea?” she added.
Why let the scientologists have all the fun? Ask your local religious leader be your wingman.
Imagine you roll up to the club with your partner in crime, Father O’Flanigan. You see a hottie but her friend is obviously a clingy butterface. Have no fear as you greet those saucy gentiles because the ladies can’t resist a man with a collar. It’s like St. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians, “Lose not your faith in the Lord. For YOLO, I say unto you, because honeys be tripp’n.”
Plus, any man of the cloth has a treasure trove of readymade pickup lines. For instance, there’s the classic, “Honey, you must be a miracle, because you’re turning water into fine.” Or how about, “Mama, your booty so round, I want to get Ecclesi-nasty up in there.” And finally, the lovably direct, “Baby girl, let’s play Jonah and the whale, because I want to be inside you.”
So there you have it friends, three more surefire tips to help you get a date for Valentine’s Day. Add to desired partners and stir. To wrap it up, I only have one more piece of advice: wrap it up.
