Five Personas To Assume On A Date

BETH SWORDS makes your life easier with five personas you can assume on a date.

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How to conduct yourself on a date is an issue as delicate as gauze. Should you stay true to yourself and conduct the prerequisite 45 minutes of conversation before wearing common ground thin? Or should you create a persona that will comfortably fill any awkward silences and keep your date on their toes for an hour, two hours, maybe the whole evening?  Obviously you should choose the latter.  Once I went on a date as myself and, put it this way, it was like trying to light some tinder with a damp match. Ironically it was also a tinder date. I digress. Try out these five personas on either RAG or V-Day to delete any chance of damp or subpar conversation:

 Be A Conventional Flirt

Lean forward, place elbows together, adjust low-cut shirt. Girls, flash cleavage. Boys, flash pecs. Tip your head back, laugh in an adorably light tone when the date tells a joke that shouldn’t even merit a scoff. If there’s a pause in conversation: twirl your hair. You’ve got short hair, you say? No such thing as short hair, only short imagination. Give them the eyes whilst sipping from your straw. Keep it PG though: the key to being a conventional flirt is by tempting and only tempting your subject. Dangle the carrot but don’t wash, dice and sauté it.

Oh look at her. So cute

Unleash Your Inner Pussy Galore

I understand this is really only appropriate for girls and I apologise for both gender-stereotyping but also scratching this option off for the men out there. I urge boys not to go down this route for fear of turning you into a ‘Seduce and Destroy’ character – something that I definitely do not condone (although, Tom Cruise really works that leather waistcoat).

Channel Pussy Galore. Be husky-voiced, composed but with a past that obviously still haunts you. Play with your subject as Ms. P. Galore would. Ensure questions are never asked about you and your interests. Push the conversation onto your subject – make them feel small and interrogated. Make them feel like they need to please and impress you. The only way to guarantee a spoon is to be as blunt as one. And my Dad told me that, so it must be true.

Be The Girl Next Door With An Interest in Psychopaths

It is always refreshing to find a normal individual on a date. Therefore, assume the ‘girl next door’ persona. Have hair that is appropriately shiny but won’t cast a shadow on your date’s TresEmméd barnett and make them feel subpar. Make sure your chat is cute but predictable.

This offers a youthful charm you now need to negate with some dark sexiness. After talking about your pet rabbit ‘Bunny’, segue calmly into your favourite film ‘Fatal Attraction’. Favourite scene being the bunny boiling bit. Say all this whilst quietly sipping a pint of milk. Look sweet and innocent, and then reveal that you only like milk because it reminds you of blood. A strange non-sequitur that will only leave your date gagging for more.

Just a wholesome girl eating a cookie. Or is she?

Be The ‘After This Date, I’m Going To Walk Slowly Into The Ocean’ Person

There’s nothing a date requires more than desperation and self-loathing. One model  is the ‘crying, crying, talking about how low your life has reached, crying’ model. It is always difficult to work out where this will take you on your date. Will the subject be understanding and will it lead to a night of weepy passion? Or will they panic and make a quick exit, thus proving your mother right when she told you that you should stop crying on dates? I guess there’s only one way to find out.

Be a Hugh Grant

Keep the HG mantra firmly in mind at all times: bumble, mumble and crumble. If anything, this should be your default persona on a date.  Whip out a tartan scarf, a loosely fitted woollen sweater and a weak smile. Team that with minor over-shares concerning piles or ironically sexist jokes and then perfect spilling a drink down your date’s front, followed by awkward dabbing. After that, you might as well book the church. A few more earnest hair ruffles and you can book the care home.

Hiding hands indicates committment

Dates can be terrifyingly awkward. Pauses can feel like a lifetime and the fear of a No Man’s Land existing where common ground should be looms scarily. However, if you find yourself in this situation, why not assume such a persona? Go on. That way, if you go home only with a lump in your throat and jeans for company, you can be sure it’s not you, it’s them.