| Do you remember the Tootsie Roll commercial from our childhood? The freckled boy with big round glasses asks the wise owl in the tree, “Mr. Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?” The wise owl takes the candy, and starts to count as he licks: One, two, three, crunch. Calmly, and with authority, he looks at the child and answers, “Three.” I’m not a wise old owl but I’ve been asked many times, how many dates should one go on before it’s time to call it a day? I’m guessing that if you ask 10 different people, you’ll get eleven different answers. I used to believe that a two-date minimum applied to every man I dated. The idea behind my thinking was that everyone is nervous on that first date. Even if your hands aren’t shaking, there’s still a level of anxiety and/or anticipation that keeps you from truly being comfortable enough to really be yourself. We put on our best show, repeat only the best stories about our lives, and even laugh at jokes that aren’t funny. Knowing that familiarity breeds comfort, I pretty much held to the two-date rule before passing judgment about the potential for a long term relationship with a man. This rule lasted for years. Then I turned 50. Suddenly I felt that I just didn’t have that much time to devote to a date that was stuck in the nervous stage the entire evening. It seems to me that there should be a relaxed feeling, an ease if you will, by the end of the first date. This may seem a bit harsh. But when you hit a certain point in your life, you have to feel that you’ve gained mastery over one or two areas in your existence that formerly wasted your time. So, now, it’s one date. One full date. My friend, Safiya, who just turned 60, disagrees. She is a proponent of the three-minute rule. She claims with the utmost certainty that she can predict the longevity of a relationship within minutes of meeting a man. If it isn’t working, she ends the date early. That’s a bit difficult for some people, and maybe even a bit rude. My friend, Burt, has a different philosophy. He believes that one should keep dating until it doesn’t work anymore. His average is about three months. Once we actually start dating and find that it’s not right, the question then becomes: How long do we date before we call it quits? If the inability to delay gratification caused the owl to get to the center of things too quickly, how does that translate to our search for true love? Don’t we sometimes dive in too fast, hoping for happily ever-after without wading in the dating pool long enough to get used to the water? Then we find we’ve just wasted time with someone who is completely wrong for us. When asked when to call it quits, Burt had the answer: When you get to the crunch. |
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