The Beginner’s Guide To Toxic Dating
Why make one bad mistake when you can make many?
Alright, listen up in the back, we’re here today to learn about Toxic Dating.
Why? ’Cause it’s all the rage. We’ve got toxic masculinity, toxic feminism, toxic empathy, toxic sexuality, and (take a bow here, Flint Michigan) toxic water. So it’s about time we had ourselves some real Toxic Dating.
Jeez, get with it, people.
The beauty of Toxic Dating is simple: you pre-select for disappointment.
Ordinary people go on dates hoping to find The One, or at least The One For Tonight. And most of the time they get badly disappointed. The date spends his / her time bad-mouthing their ex. They drool. They weigh three hundred pounds more than they said in their profile and they look nothing like their photos. Which were taken from some online clothing catalog.
This means most people end the evening feeling like crap. Life has dealt them another bad hand when they were hoping for rainbows and sparkles.
Boo hoo.
Toxic Dating is great because it takes all the suspense out of the dating ritual. Instead of dreading that your date may be toxic, you have the magical assurance of knowing that it’s you who’s going to be the toxic date. So even if the person you meet turns out to be pretty OK, you can still wreck the evening and go home alone.
Of course, being a toxic date requires some preparation. You’ll need a selection of stories about how badly life has treated you and how you can’t trust anyone. You’ll need some other stories about the various sexually transmitted diseases you’ve contracted over the years (you can invent some if you’ve not been getting out enough). It should go without saying that your clothes should be stained and mis-matched, and that ideally you won’t have showered for several days beforehand.
You’ll need a rough game plan for the evening. A good ice-breaker is to lean across the table, stare intently at the other person, and ask, “So, what do you do, how much do you make, do you own your own home, have you ever been arrested for fraud, do you have to pay alimony or child support, how much do you have in your retirement account and are you still making car payments?”
This should instantly put the other person at ease.
Or terrify them, which is actually what you want to achieve.
Another great strategy is to remain blank-faced if the other person attempts to make a joke, but laugh uproariously when they say something personal, sad, or poignant. Few things are more satisfying than bursting out with uncontrollable laughter just after someone confesses tearfully that their partner died last year of cancer. This kind of behavior will say more about you than egg yolk stains on your shirt ever will.
Don’t forget to take a knife or box-cutter with you. About ten minutes into the date, reach into your pocket, take it out, and put it on the table. Rest your right hand next to the handle, about one-quarter inch away. Explain that you always carry knives with you, “Just to be sure.”
If you want, follow this up with a monologue about how you like to catch small animals and then disembowel them for the pleasure of hearing the noises they make as they bleed out all over your hands. Then stare at the other person’s stomach for twenty seconds.
Ideally you’ve selected an Italian restaurant where nearly all the menu choices involve meat or fish. Wait for the other person to order, and then exclaim loudly how veganism is the only acceptable choice nowadays and how everyone who eats meat is basically a planet-hating fascist who should be cut open with the nearest sharp object. Then glance meaningfully at the blade near your right hand.
Assuming the other person is foolish enough to remain seated, or too cowardly to get up and leave, you should begin to enumerate their failings as they attempt to eat their meal. This should occupy at least twenty minutes of non-stop itemization, which you can conclude by telling them you’re asexual and completely not interested at all in any form of human contact and besides you’re sure their genitals are malformed and disgusting.
Now’s the time to smile and tell them you’re having a wonderful evening and you look forward to doing it all again tomorrow. And the night after that. And every night thereafter.
OK, so that concludes the introductory lesson. Now get out there and make the world even worse than it already is! You can do it!
I know you will.
