DATING as a teenager usually followed eight months of lovesick obsession, which came out by absolutely f**king things up:
Making a mix-tape
Sure, maybe a few months into a relationship. However, rocking up to a Pizza Express to shyly hand your paramour a CD of Dido remixes guarantees you’ll be eating your Sloppy Giuseppe in total silence for 90 minutes before getting the bus home alone.
A gift of jewellery
There’s nothing wrong with chocolates or flowers at a first date, apart from how agonisingly obvious it makes it when you’re stood up. But appearing with gift-wrapped ear-rings that cost all of your savings from your summer job made it look as if you had arranged a dowry.
Writing a poem
Poetry is the most reviled of the literary arts, even when Keats wrote it. You’ll never hear from your date again after presenting him with a hand-bound volume of sonnets including ‘The back of your head in physics A-level is the shape of the hole in my heart’. Bonus loser points if you then fail physics A-level.
Dressing tartily
Teenage girls on dates will often be forced into extremely unwise clothing decisions by naive friends, all the rom-coms they’ve watched and the patriarchy. It doesn’t matter what the boy does when the girl is wearing a lime-green minidress with red heels, she will never want to see him again.
Singing
Romance, drink and inexperience lead to awful, regrettable decisions, like performing Take That’s A Million Love Songs to a bewildered girl who only agreed to this because your mate’s going out with her mate. Finish the song, shake hands and agree to part ways forever.
Going in for a snog immediately
You’re both there for a snog, and it’ll probably happen out of sheer awkwardness. But if, over-excited, you meet outside Nando’s and suddenly throw yourself at your terrified partner, they’ll run with the speed and grace of Bambi fleeing the burning forest. Still, you got a snog.
