Perils d'amour

The demographic on the #perl IRC channel is rather interesting as most over 25 years of age are married and often have kids whereas the under 25 crowd are single angst-ridden guys who often talk about how much they dislike women or girls or, more often, bitches. This makes me wonder what miraculous transformation happens between early teenage years and 25 to mend this rift.

Well, I have found the perfect Christmas gift for young boy geeks of all persuasions, The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating & Sex the third book from the Worst-Case Scenario people who give us such valuable information such as How to survive Ebola and Anthrax exposure. Yes, now you, too, can learn how to:

• Determine if your date is an axe murderer - The bad news is that most of the characteristics describe a bunch of Mongers I know :)
• Determine the gender of your date - One would hope you had this covered long before the date but...
• Escape from a bad date - My mother always said to carry enough money for a phonecall and a cab home but I guess breaking glass in the restroom and climbing out windows is all the rage these days.
• Spot fake boobies and hair. Now, you can tell this was written for guys as they say "If a woman is over thirty and has strikingly full breasts that sit very high on her chest, you have reason to be suspicious". Hey guy, never heard of the Wonderbra?! And they don't mention how to look at a guys feet and hands to decide whether his bulge is real or just a tube sock.
• Deal with body odour and bad breath - I guess breathmints and SpeedStick are passe.
• Survive excessive gas - the illustration of the 'fart position' alone is worth the price of the book.
• Survive if you are stopped by the police. - I once had a date with a guy who I finally agreed to go out with after he pestered me for months. As we were driving to dinner we get pulled over and it turned out that he had a bench warrant from the city for having expired registration on his car. I bailed him out much later that evening but, needless to say, it was his first and last date with me :)
• Remove difficult clothing - includes a step-by-step how-to on removing the bra with one hand.
• Fake an orgasm and spot a real orgasm - again, the illustrations here are priceless.
• Have sex in an airplane lavatory - You know, they have The Mile High Club but sex in a loo that usually has barely enough room for me to pee in doesn't really sound enjoyable. I mean, I'm 5'7" and 130pounds or so...what do people of, er, ample body mass do?
• How to survive snoring - I have a St. Bernard who snores loudly enough to be heard upstairs at night...somehow 'rolling him onto his side or stomach' isn't going to be an option.
• Survive if you wake up next to someone whose name you don't remember - Again, this must have been written by guys "Do not guess at her name. Acceptable terms of endearment are: Honey/Sweetie/Cutie/Darling/Baby/Sugar/Beautiful/Handsome/Gorgeous". Right. Just hope you don't get the girl with the baseball bat next to the bed with a sharp aversion to patronising 'terms of endearment'.
• Have an affair and not get caught - You either have a woman that is psychic or one that won't ever notice, either way this whole section won't be of much help.
• Stop a wedding - The fire alarm and feigning seizure are the most creative.
• End a relationship - includes a list of useful excuses and an 'it's not you, it's me' letter that is absolutely priceless....obviously the authors never dated someone of more than average persistence.
• A list of pick up lines to avoid - and boy do they have some winners in there like "So, are you legal?".

So no more will geek boys need to take Sex tips from ESR and they'll be prepared for anything, including fear and loathing, on the dating scene. I wonder if I should pitch a "The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: female computer geek" with such important skills like 'what to do when cornered by a guy who is telling you his life story at a LUG meeting', 'how to tell the 16 year old pre-pubescent ego transport to fuck off without really trying' and 'how to write your name in the snow because that's what it's really all about.'

Dating sucks and while I don't know that the survival handbook will be of much help it certainly is very amusing. A 'good sense of humour' always ranks in the 'top 3 ideal qualities in a man' surveys Cosmo does every year. :)