Casual Conversation For A First Date: "What's Your Opinion On Abortion?"

Dr. Helen links an article about five things guys love hearing on a first date and five things they hate hearing.

One of them is that sort of question, designed to test a potential suitor for political compatibility.

Dr. Helen doesn't offer a definitive opinion on it, but does seem to snark she thinks it's a bad idea for a woman to do that.

I know she's a psychologist and all, but I've got to disagree with her. If moonbattish political conformity is important to a woman, so much so that she really isn't interested in getting to know a guy unless he voted for Mondale whenever he's had the opportunity (if he changed residences in 2002 just to vote for Mondale in his last Senate bid, bonus points!), then, hey, it's better to find these things out early.

Actually, there are a lot of things that it's best to find out early -- is your credit rating good? do you make a decent amount of money? do you really like hiking or is that just some bullshit you say on your personals form? is there any chance at all you know what the hell you're doing with my ladyequipment? -- and women use various subterfuges and proxy questions to find out the answers. Men have their own questions, starting off with "If we actually date for a month, are you going to start talking about marriage after the 30-day grace period?" and "Are you actually kind of sexual? Or are you one of those One Week Wonder sort of chicks who will lure me in with lots of sex when we start dating and then lose virtually all initiative and enthusiasm by day eight?"*

Eh. It's just true that more similar people make better couples. Opposites may attract, but they do not stay together for long periods of time. It may be superficial to ask about politics as if that's the measure of someone's character, but 1, to a liberal, your politics are indeed the sum and entirety of your character, and 2, there are far more superficial things men and women are trying to suss out about each other on a first date.

I mean, a guy's only trying to figure out how many dates it will take to get a woman into bed, and that's a almost as superficial as one's stance on Roe v. Wade.

* BTW, the answer to this question is always, "Yes, she's a One Week Wonder; they all are." Maybe not just a week, maybe a Golden Fortnight; maybe not even a full week. But yeah. Pretty much. Evolution has given women mad sex drives at the start of a relationship in order to get guys thinking "I could kinda get used to this right here!" but, alas, we never do get used to it, because one day, for reasons unknown, it stops cold like a lobster in a display tank when it sees Rosie O'Donnell's has entered the restaurant wearing an automotive tarpoline as a bib and gulping down a jug of melted butter so as to "cut out the middleman."

So, stop wondering that, and just ask her where she stands on the Patriot Act.

PS: There is, however, no reason to ask a guy this, because most guys are quite a bit more conservative than women, and when a woman says she wants a really liberal guy for her man she's usually thinking "I'd like nice gay shopping buddy that will occassionally cuddle with me, like I've seen on television," and besides that, if women think that guys are going to give a straight answer when sex is on the line, they're more naive than I thought.

We learned what to say in college. Abortion rights, up the Sandanistas, save the rainforest, I'm really looking forward to the new Pedro Almalovar movie, yadda. yadda. yadda."

You'll have to be more subtle than that. If you really want to figure out a guy's politics, go up to a bum on your way out of the restaurant, give the bum a crisp ten dollar bill, and ask the guy if he has another ten because you really wanted to give him twenty.

And then watch his face.

Sure, we'll cough up the ten bucks and pretend we're big on passing out twenties to random street rummies (see the point about saying anything to get sex, supra), but you can still see it in the eyes, like the slow pupilary response in a Replicant.

posted by Ace at 07:28 PM

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