How to Get a Boyfriend for Two Months

 Please note that the only thing in dating that I’m qualified to give advice about is how to score a man for two months. I’ve had an abundance of two-month relationships over the course of my life (think somewhere along the lines of 15-20). And, well, I’m pretty damn good at it. Note, this isn’t a blog post about “How to get married” or even “How to get a boyfriend longer than 2 months”… just for two months. I’m not qualified to address any other sort of relationship. So if someone wants to blog about either of the above titles, let me know, and I’ll subscribe to your blog immediately.

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(1) Be honest. But don’t be too honest.  

This is the premise of the rest of my blog post. It factors in to each of the follow 3 pieces of advice. Always keep this in mind!

(2) Really prepare the first time he visits your place.

The first time I visit a date’s place and the first time he visits mine is a monumental occasion in any of my two-month relationships.

The bachelorette pad.

The woman-cave of single life.

If I take a close look around my lived-in, single-lady rented, girlie apartment, there are a few things that would scare off almost any man. Here’s where I need to factor in #1 on my list: be honest, but not too honest.

To demonstrate how one might prepare for the boyfriend’s first viewing of the Single Lady Love Shack, follow me through the 2 hours I spent preparing today for such an event. Last night, I stayed in and spent my time eating a pint of ice cream, chocolate brownies straight from the pan without a knife or fork (I just dig in), drinking some wine, while crying mercilessly to round 14 of The Notebook. This morning my living room had the remains of brownies, used-tissues softly decorating the floor, and a partially-drank wine bottle with one single wine glass. It is important for a man to never see these remains. I took that brownie pan and washed it.  Picked up the Kleenexes and put them in the BOTTOM of the trash can (No one likes a girl who cries way too easily). I sadly and longingly dumped out the remainder of the wine to hide all of the evidence that I was drinking wine alone on a Saturday night (Sounds kind of depressing, but it was actually awesome. I do what I want.) With all signs that I’m an overly-emotional lush removed from view I went on to the next task.

Now the bathroom is a particularly important place to focus efforts. One thing is that girls never lift up the toilet seat, but your date mostly will on his first visit to your place. I make sure to think about that. Next, I hide all evidence of me not being naturally beautiful. Put away the teeth whitener (my teeth are naturally white!), the make up (my face is naturally beautiful and colorful!), the 3 curling irons, hair dryers and volumizing spray (my hair volumizes itself!). I also remove tampons and pads from out of sight since this can confuse certain men.

Next is the kitchen. I like comfort food, but I want my date to think I’m extraordinarily healthy. This is why I put all of my chocolate, cookies, brownies, and candy bars to the back of the top shelf of the cupboard. I replace these with fresh fruits and vegetables.

For good measure, I do a quick cleaning of the entire apartments, spray some air freshener all around and haphazardly place my running shoes, yoga mat, and gym membership in a noticeable place.

(3) Keep in the crazy. Don’t be so weird.

At least not right away.

If you have to let out some crazy, do so slowly and intentionally.

I’m certain that everyone is just a little bit crazy. Some more than others. Here are a few examples of dates that I’ve been on that didn’t make it to two months because my date didn’t know to keep in the crazy:

---The guy who talked about how foot care was so important to him that he owned his own foot lotions, foot bath machine (wait, what?), callous removers for the feet and nail care products. Dumped.

---The guy who lectured me for 20 minutes on how females get high levels of prolactin that cause rampant emotional changes. The only way females can get rid of these high levels of prolactin is by crying. Hence, women need to cry more than men. Keep your weird conspiracy theories about women’s tears to yourself! Dumped.

           

I’m a little weird too. I have an abnormal obsession with warthogs (they’re just so cute and loveable!) When I’m feeling sad, I go on an internet missions to find cute pictures of Asian babies with basset hounds (the two cutest things on the planet… well besides wart hogs… but finding wart hogs and Asian babies is basically an impossible task and I don’t like to set myself up for failure.)

Another weird thing that plagues me is that I have gross med school-inflicted concerns. We learn about horrible, and sometimes gross diseases, and at some point in a med student career, we’re bound to think that we have at least one of those diseases. This important to hide from your date. I thought I had a gross disease involving worms the other day. As I was getting pretty comfortable with my current boyfriend, I thought maybe I should bounce this idea off of him to see what he think. But thankfully, I thought to myself “Liz, keep in that crazy! Don’t be so weird!” And I told my med school friend about it instead, effectively saving my relationship. Within the next 24 hours, my imaginary symptoms of this worm infection went away. Turns out, I was actually worm-free!  

So yeah, I can be weird, but I know not to let any of those things out on the first 10 dates. I need him to see and like my normal side first, and then slowly throw in a weird thing or two. At that time, he probably won’t dump me, since now he knows that my positive characteristics overshadows those few weird things.

But if he reacts strongly and says, “What?! You’re serious? That’s really, really crazy weird.”

Then I just say, “Hahah… no I’m obviously just kidding. It’s honestly weird that you would think I was serious. Who would really think/ do/ say that? It’s a joke. “

And then I compliment his arm muscles causing him to get distracted in a moment of manly self-worshipping.

(4) Little omissions never hurt anyone.

Over the past 3 years, I’ve been a very busy medical student who pays a lot of money for my education and who chooses not to learn how to cook. In the beginning of relationships, since I can’t be too honest, I often have to pretend I am a free-time loving, super chill, really don’t have that much to do medical student who can cook without killing myself or others. (At least until he loves me). I therefore am careful to omit information involving

A. Having free time

B. Finances

C. Being able to cook

Let me give an example of a date that involved all 3 omissions.

This one guy I dated often took the time to make me wonderful home-cooked meals pretty often. I was super busy on a surgery rotation. Since the ratio of the number of times he cooked for me to the number of times that I cooked for him was now 6:0, I guiltily thought I should invite him over for a pretend Liz-made-meal. Since I was too busy to cook, and I didn’t want to make time to cook, I just stopped at Noodles and Company on my way home from the hospital. I put the meal into my own dishes and went to the effort of walking outside to the dumpster to dispose of any Noodles and Company labeled packaging. Believe it or not, he really loved the pasta I made!

During dinner, I omitted a few things. Here are a few strategies that help one omit:

--Distracting him by giving compliments

--Being intentionally vague

--Saying that “I feel uncomfortable” even if it doesn’t make conceptual sense.

Here is how this plays out:

Him: So how many hours are you working this week?

(I’m really working 14 hours/day then studying)

Me: Oh, nothing I can’t handle… You know what I just noticed? How your blue shirt really makes your blue eyes stand out! That’s so cool.

Him: (blushes) I’ve been told that my eyes change depending on what shirt I’m wearing.

Me: No way! That’s so interesting.

Or…

Him: So I’ve been worried about my $30,000 loans from college. Do you ever get nervous about your loans from college/ MPH/ med school?

(Heck yeah, I think about how far into debt I am all the time)

Me: I feel uncomfortable.
Him: Oh no! So this pasta was delicious. What sorts of things do you like to cook? 
Me: I still feel uncomfortable.

Him: Oh! I'm so sorry. Let’s just change the subject then. Tell me about your day.

This might come as a surprise to most of you, but I’m often the one doing the dumping after two months. Of course, I’ve been tenderly escorted to Dumpsville my fair share of times, but more often than not, I’m the privileged escort. (Uh, well, you know what I mean.)

There are some circulating theories about reasons why my relationships don’t last. One is that I sabotage things when they get too serious. Another is that I choose to date people just because it entertains me (which to a certain extent is true, I dated an extraordinarily rich guy for like 2 months since I thought all his rich mannerism were funny; I dated a bald motorcycle riding tough guy with pitbulls for 2 months since it made me feel badass for like the first time ever.) A final theory is that I’m just too cool.

Oh wait, no one has ever said that last one.