Greg Behrendt - It’s Just a Date - A Guide to a Sane Dating Life

It seems like I should have figured that I was doing it wrong after the fiasco of my first marriage. Want to talk about going fast? I met him and it was love at first sight … except for the fact that he had a girlfriend. It was a matter of months before they broke up and we got together, so to make up for lost time we spontaneously got married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator. That’s good, right? I had never been to his home, we hadn’t met each other’s families and probably didn’t know each other’s middle names. We did have similar record collections, so that, along with our young love, should have been enough. Well, not surprisingly it turns out that we didn’t really know each other that well among other biggies that eluded us like similar values and the desire for children. So that didn’t work out but I learned my lesson about jumping in too fast. Right? Or did I, as my next relationship went straight from “Nice to meet you” to “We should go to Barbados on vacation.” At least I had seen his house before packing my bikinis and we did have similar record collections. But ultimately we got too intense too quickly and it we burned out on each other. Strike two! It’d be nice if there wasn’t a strike three but there he was and who could resist the best friend that proclaims his love after too many Heinekens? Not I. So into instant boyfriend I fell. You know what happens when you go from being best friends to instant boyfriend/girlfriend? You realize that you probably weren’t meant to be boyfriend/girlfriend but are trapped in a relationship with a person you love but “not in that way.” That didn’t end well. So at this point I was recognizing that speed was my foe and the way I dated wasn’t working for me. The relationships I got myself into were plagued by the lack of certainty from rushing myself or someone else into feelings that weren’t fully there. Then I met Greg Behrendt, who must have been doing the same thing in his life because he was Mister Take It Slow. Nice. We went out on our first date, which was very good, in fact we decided that we would go out again while still on the date. But then I broke up with him. Huh? It’s a long story involving an ex-boyfriend that wouldn’t go away. However he said the most amazing thing upon hearing my true but cockamamie sounding story about the ex-boyfriend on my lawn, “It’s also okay if you don’t like me like that.” What?! Who the hell was this completely self-possessed guy? I told him truly that I didn’t know yet whether I liked him but would be interested in finding out. So we dated, the old-fashioned way. He called ahead, asked me out, plans were made and we went on dates. We also dated other people while dating each other. There was no hopping in the sack, no racing to lock it down, no panic about what the other was thinking, feeling, doing. Then one day he said something mind-blowing, “I’m not going to date other people. I only want to go out with you but I don’t expect you to do the same until you’re ready to.” What?! Who the hell is this guy who is going to stop dating other people but not demand I do the same? So we continued dating and soon after I came to the same conclusion that he had … I didn’t want to date other people. So there we were as boyfriend and girlfriend because we both truly wanted to be that and had figured it out at our own pace. Revolutionary! Then shortly thereafter he says those three magic words followed by the even more magical words that I had never heard before, “I Love You. But you don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to be at the same place emotionally that I am but I know that I love you and I wanted you to know it.” Holy crap!! Are you kidding me? Where did this alien creature come from that is so comfortable in his own feelings that he can allow me to have my own feelings? That’s how foreign the idea of taking things slow and actually figuring your feelings organically was to me. Normally at this point in a relationship I would have felt obligated to blurt it right back and hope that I grew into the feelings later, but because he was so self-possessed it made it effortless for me to be too. That being said, when I actually experienced having a relationship in real time, on my time, it became the one that has lasted the longest and burns the brightest because it’s real and taking place in actual time. We’re on this journey together side by side instead of one dragging the other behind. Our story is the reason that we decided to write this book because we know what is possible if you learn to do it right.

The decision to start dating was a simple one. It started with a skillet. Not even a nice one, but one of those gun metal grey now singed black, workhorse skillets that you burn fried eggs with. “Wait Greg, are you telling me the interested reader that a dirty skillet got you dating? I’m not convinced.” Yes I remember thinking as the greasy black pan was heading towards my skull, “This might not be the right relationship. I’m not choosing the right lady for me.” Here’s what happened. I was newly “drinks free” (I like that better than sober because it almost sounds like free drinks and that makes people happy) and had been set up with a girl who was also “drinks free”. She was foxy and funny with a little edge. Anyway we went on two dates, one a formal dinner and the other we hung out at a thing then had awkward sex too soon and became girlfriend-boyfriend. We didn’t really know each other but because we had had sex we felt beholden to one another and after all, this is how most of my relationships started in the past. Why should this be any different? Ever since college the recipe had been the same. Meet someone, take them out twice, have sex on the third date, become a couple, then fight until done. Ding! It wasn’t either person’s fault it was how the game had been set up. I had a pattern, it didn’t work and I was sticking to it … until the skillet. I remember calling my mom that day and saying “… you know what? Maybe I don’t end up with anybody. Maybe I’m just destined to be a bachelor. And if that is the case then I’m gonna bachelor the shit out of it.” I went at it like a sporting event. I got my own apartment. Taught myself how to cook and to clean. Picked out my own furniture. I went to movies by myself, ate at restaurants by myself and bought my own clothes. I began to teach myself to live as though I might never meet someone but if I did they’d be blown away by how self-sufficient I was and by my matching bamboo end tables. Like Field of Dreams . If you build it they will come. And then the weirdest thing happened: I started meeting girls. Everywhere. Department stores, flower shops, cafés, softball games and hair salons. See a pattern, fellas? Go to where the girls are. But don’t go just to go. The fact that I was now not actively looking for a relationship made me appear to just appear. And for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to date more than one person. And I took it. I’d never done that, so why now? Well, I was at my parents over a Thanksgiving break and I was in my mom’s office looking for something when I came across an old date book of hers from when she was dating my dad. I flipped through it and I noticed something almost revolutionary. She had begun dating my dad in May. I know this because his name appears periodically through out the month. Thursday Richard. Saturday Richard. But there are also two other names that appear throughout the month. Steve and Aaron, but as we get to June Aaron drops off like a stone and Steve’s name appears less and less until it fully goes away in July. My dad kicked some dating ass, but the real lesson was my mom wasn’t limiting her options until she was sure. I asked her if my dad knew about the other guys. “Not at first. But you didn’t ask in those days. It was just assumed that you were dating.” “Assumed you were dating? And he was cool with that?” “He didn’t love it but he respected it and in some ways I think it made getting me all the sweeter.” Dating!? What a great f*#king idea. Imagine, just going out with someone a few times to see how you really feel about them. So I decided to give it a try. And I found that I liked it and that I was pretty good at it. Were all the dates good? Hell no! There were some nightmares you will read about later on in the book. Did you get your heart broken? Not as badly as if I had tried to turn them into relationships. But it led to the best relationship I ever had with another person on this planet. And that’s why I wanted to write this book. There is an option out there and it’s the only one we have besides arranged marriages. Wait—we don’t have arranged marriages. But I have supplied a petition at the back of the book if you want to lobby for arranged marriages. So why go on a date? Because they work, because dating is the best way to get to know someone you don’t know and someone you do, because it’s a great way to set the tone and speed for a relationship, because there are snacks, because you might make a friend or meet a future business partner, because you might have the worst night of your life and that could lead to you writing the next great novel, because you’ll never know if you don’t, because it’s just a f@#king date.