Last night I went to an off-Broadway show called Hyprov where I, along with several other audience volunteers, was hypnotized on stage in front of a huge crowd of people.

The conceit of Hyprov is that the hypnotist whittles down the initial big group of volunteers to a smaller group of the 5 most “suggestible” people, who are then coached by an improvisor into doing various improv scenarios while in trance. I made it through some initial rounds but didn’t get into the final 5, which was fine with me as I wanted to watch the show just as much as I wanted to be in it, and you can’t really do both.

I’m currently sitting in the boarding lounge of an airport, waiting to fly to New York to attend a family wedding my spouse is officiating in the States. And so, naturally, I’m thinking about the hell that is air travel.

Sometimes people seem to think being in a long-distance marriage is glamorous, what with all the jetsetting. And certainly, I’m blessed to be able to travel when I need to (and, pre-pandemic and maybe again someday, when I want to). There is glamour in certain elements of travel – I have a go-to minimalistically chic “uniform” I usually fly in, for instance, consisting of a slinky black slip dress, black leggings, a black cashmere cardigan and black leather boots, and I’ll admit I never tire of that feeling when you step out of the baggage claim hall and into a familiar city, happy to be back.

(Content note: this essay is about a dildo shaped like a gun, so I will be discussing guns and the danger they pose, including mentions of murder and being held at gunpoint. None of these things have actually happened to me; I’ll just be discussing them theoretically. I also touch on knife play, fear play, and trauma from emotional abuse.)

As a financial domination task in order to earn their freedom from chastity, I recently “commanded” my partner (air-quotes ‘cause it was consensual and pre-negotiated) to buy me the Hole Punch Evolver, a dildo shaped like a gun. I’ve wanted it for years but never quite been able to justify the steep price tag, so I was thrilled that my beloved was willing to foot the bill so we could experience the oddity and beauty of this dildo together.

There's a clothing-optional beach in Toronto called Hanlan's Point – actually, it's across the lake, on the Toronto Islands. It's one of only two officially recognized nude beaches in all of Canada, apparently. And somehow, until last week, I had never gone.

Oh, don't worry, I definitely knew about it. I've been invited, on several occasions, to go there for beachside birthday parties and summertime hangs with sex-positive friends. But I had never managed to actually go, and it's for a reason that's kind of embarrassing to admit: I was too nervous. But not about the nudity.

Being naked in public is no big deal to me, to be honest. Sure, it always feels weird for a few seconds when I first take off my clothes – say, when I'm about to get into the heated pool at my local sex club, or when I'm with a group of pals at Pride and we decide to walk around topless in the summer sun – but I quickly acclimate. Nude bodies are just bodies; they're not monstrous, or shocking, or worthy of judgment, as long as they're being displayed in appropriate settings. I've been going to events like all-nude Body Pride workshops and public porn shoots since I was 20, and I'm even more confident about my shape and size now than I was then. It no longer phases me to be naked in public (as long as I've consented to it and so have the people around me, obviously).

No, the thing that troubled me about visiting Hanlan's was much sillier. I was nervous about the travel. See, to get to the Islands, you have to take a ferry boat from a station at the southernmost part of the city. Because of the ways my anxiety manifests, the journey stressed me out on logistical and social levels. How would I know where to go? Would the ticket-takers look at me judgmentally, knowing I planned to strip nude on the other side of the ride? Would people think I was weird for taking the ferry alone, even if I was going to meet friends? How would I figure out when and where to actually get naked? Would people aggressively flirt with me, and if so, how would I fend them off? Did I need to bring a towel, a folding chair, a canister of pepper spray? What would I do if I needed to use the bathroom? And so on and so forth.

“Competency kink” is one of those terms that often makes people’s eyes light up when I mention it because they recognize this concept from their own life. I think many (most? all?) of us are attracted to competency, but there are people for whom competency can make or break an attraction, and I am one of those people.

Be it the local barista whose latte art is legendary, the fast-fingered guitar player busking on a street corner, or the movie star whose emotive eyes light up entire theatres, I can develop deeply intense crushes on people just because they’re so damn good at what they do. I think this is one of the reasons I value competence so highly in myself, too (and am self-critical when I perceive myself to be incompetent as something I am doing): I know that it not only makes me skilled or talented, but to a significant portion of the population, it also makes me hot. Win-win!

Here are 5 people who are all, frankly, attractive anyway, but are made even moreso by the fact that they’re extremely fucking competent. Warning: there is fangirlish gushing ahead.

1) The YouTuber who makes cocktail videos. There are multiple layers to this man’s competency. First, obviously, he knows cocktails: he can rattle off the history of seemingly any drink, and has both the mental and physical skills necessary to create entirely new recipes from his own imagination. He’s great with a shaker, can crack an ice cube into pieces with one strategic tap of a barspoon, and improvises new drinks the way a jazz sax player improvises a solo. But on top of his cocktail wizardry, there’s also his video production competence: his editing is always impeccable, his set is well-dressed, and he brings a telegenic whimsy to every video. If anyone was ever born to make YouTube videos about cocktails, it’s this man.

What do unscrupulous sex toy companies and sexually overconfident men have in common? Well, quite a few things. Both are prone to talking the talk without knowing how to walk the walk (or fuck the fuck). You can spend money or time on/with them in the hopes that sexual pleasure will follow and just end up disappointed. Your friends might say, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” and you might know they’re right to be cautious but have trouble actually cutting ties. And people and sex toys can both look much prettier in pictures than they do when they’re actually in your bed.

But the key commonality I’m pondering today is this: both sex toy companies and self-important players might assure you that they can definitely get you off – and both might be spectacularly wrong about that.

I am always skeptical of anyone who claims to have a perfect (or very high) success rate when it comes to making people come, whether we’re talking about a Tinder cad or a sex tech corporation. Even setting aside the possibility that some of the people in their history have been faking or lying (and even if you think you know, you can’t really know for certain), centering orgasm to that degree is already sort of a yellow flag. Not everyone needs an orgasm to be satisfied, and IMO the question shouldn’t be “How and when am I gonna make you come?” but rather, “In what ways would you like me to give you pleasure?” For a lot of people, “give me an orgasm” will be on that list, but it’s nice to check.

When a sex toy company hyperfocuses on orgasm in their marketing copy, it makes me think about those PornHub ads that implore you, “Play this cartoon porn game and you’ll come in 40 seconds.” I don’t even want to come in 40 seconds. I want to feel a lot of pleasure and then come whenever it makes sense to come. Likewise, when someone who’s never made me come before tells me, in a DM or a sext or even over drinks, “I’m gonna make you come so hard,” or “I’m gonna make you come so many times,” I always just want to laugh. They don’t even know what’s involved in that, or if they’re physically and mentally capable of doing what it takes. And, again, they are painting a picture of sex that has orgasm as its sole goal, when (I feel like a broken record here) I’d rather have sex where pleasure is the focus.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit this, as someone who literally makes my living writing about (among other things) the ethics of consent, but I am frequently complicit in my own sexual boundaries being steamrolled. (And yes, content note: this essay will discuss sex that is technically consensual but definitely reluctant.)

This is something I’ve been working on in therapy recently. I had started to notice that there would be many situations in which I didn’t really feel like having sex but nonetheless offered a blowjob or somesuch to whoever I was with, because of a nebulous anxiety I felt throughout my body that seemed to insist this was the only workable solution to what seemed like a very pressing problem. Given that I obviously know I’m well within my rights to say no to sex for any reason at all, this was a bit perplexing to me.

Of course, a history of trauma can make a person generally more prone to behaviors like fawning, freezing and submitting, especially when they’re in situations that are emotionally reminiscent of their trauma(s). But upon digging deeper on this particular issue with my therapist, I discovered that there’s a bit more to it than that. What I learned is that I pre-emptively offer sexual favors to dates because, underneath my seemingly sexually confident exterior, I have such a deep and pervasive sense of shame and worthlessness that I worry these dates wouldn’t like me if not for sex. I’m so afraid of that moment – “Oh, you don’t want to blow me? Well, that’s all I wanted here, so fuck this, I’m leaving” – that I proactively take steps to avoid it, by offering to do things I only sorta want to do. The trauma logic goes: it’s easier (at least in theory) to give head than to be faced with the certainty of my own unlovability.

GIven that I’m actively working through issues like this one in therapy, I’ve realized that I’m not in a good place right now to have casual sex, or even sex with people I’m casually dating, because I simply don’t trust myself to uphold my own boundaries and keep myself safe in that arena right now. I’ve seen how succumbing to these trauma-borne impulses can ultimately just re-traumatize me, and I want to step outside of that behavioral loop for a while so I can hopefully put an end to it.

I took some time off playing The Sims recently, not because I got bored of the endless shenanigans you can pull in that game, but because my computer had started to get too slow to comfortably run it. Passing time with your Sims just isn’t as fun when even the 3x speed-up function moves at a snail’s crawl.

But then I got myself a new computer (for almost entirely non-Sims-related reasons) and re-downloaded the game and all the expansion packs, and it’s been sorta nice to reconnect with the side of myself that can glance at the clock after a hyper-focused Sims session and realize it’s somehow 4:37 a.m. all of a sudden.

Recently I was trying to fly back from New York where I'd been staying with my spouse, and my return flight got canceled after I’d already been waiting around the airport for several hours. My body and brain were very done with airports and needed a break before attempting the journey again, so I had the airline rebook the flight for six days later.

However, since this was an unplanned extension of my trip, I hadn’t done my laundry recently, having been planning to do it when I got home. I still had clean socks, shirts, pants and dresses left, but was completely out of clean underwear, and I didn’t want to do the laundry before getting back home because I am needlessly stubborn and also lazy. So I needed to get a few pairs of underwear to tide me over until my flight.

My spouse and I went out for dinner one night and I mentioned this conundrum to them. We decided to go on a little shopping excursion after our meal, since we were in a neighborhood peppered with stores like J. Crew, Aerie, Gap and H&M. We figured it would be a five-minute detour on our way back to their place.

It was not. We went to store after store and literally none of them had any women’s underwear in stock. We looked high and low. We asked around. Nothing.

A few of my friends have recurring patterns in their romantic lives that have continually plagued them over multiple years and throughout multiple relationships. I tend to notice these, because I have similar patterns myself.

We meet a new person. We see or hear or feel something that resonates with us about this person, so we latch onto them psychologically. They quickly come to seem like the sexiest, sparkliest savior we’ve ever met. We spend as much time as we can with them, and even more time fantasizing about them, journaling about them, talking friends’ ears off about them.

My mind often wanders during sex, especially sex with someone I don’t know well and am not all that emotionally intimate with. Usually it wanders to predictable places – do I look okay? am I making the right amount of sounds? are they having fun? – but sometimes it wanders to art instead.

I’m using the word “art” in the broadest sense here, one that includes writing and music alongside visual art. It’s a big, big part of my life, and consumes a lot of my waking hours – either actually making the art or just thinking about making it, which is part of the creation process too. Especially when I’m knee-deep in a particular project, I often walk around in a sort of haze, taking in what’s happening around me but secretly stewing on whatever artistic problem has been needling me. What’s the right line for the end of the second verse of that one song I’m writing? What’s the right angle (so to speak) for the dildo review on my docket? What strange thoughts of mine can spiral into a newsletter? (Hello, I love you, thank you for reading.)

Making art is arguably one of the most erotic things I ever do, depending on how you define “erotic.” Some people say that eroticism is about pleasures of the body, whether those pleasures be having great sex, eating a big slice of cake or wading into the ocean. (Or perhaps all three at once, if you’re lucky.) But I also think there can be something genuinely erotic about the spark of joy and recognition I feel when a piece clicks into place within something I’m working on: the perfect metaphor, the perfect rhyme. It’s a visceral “aha!” moment that feels as intense, as rapturous and exciting, as when a partner stumbles across exactly the right spot on my body and touches me there in exactly the way I need.

I think one of the reasons these moments feel so powerful for me is that they give me a sudden, intense boost of self-esteem. I mean that in the literal sense: esteem for myself, respect for myself. An entire day of moping around, staring at a blank screen and feeling like a washed-up hack can be counteracted in one singular moment, when I have a sudden idea that even I have to admit is brilliant. It helps me remember why I make art in the first place (aside from the obvious: money, survival), and that I am indeed talented enough to “deserve” the money and survival that art-making affords me. (I’ve put “deserve” in quotes because capitalism is fake and everyone deserves to survive, regardless of the work they do or don’t do. Deservingness is a feeling, not a fact.)

For six years, I wrote down every single sexual encounter I ever had in a spreadsheet. It documented data like number of orgasms had by me and my partner(s), number of times I’d previously slept with each partner (to track whether my enjoyment increased after multiple encounters, which it usually does), which sex acts we did and which sex toys we used. As of this year, I’ve stopped keeping track, and it feels good.

I think my initial efforts to chronicle my sex life in this way were borne from desperation and insecurity. After a year-and-a-half-long dry spell in the wake of a long-term relationship ending, I finally started having sex again – sporadically and nervously – and it felt so momentous that I wanted to write it down, so I could look back on each entry and feel proud of myself. At first it was just a list I kept in a notebook, but then I decided to go whole-hog and make it into a digital file I could access from any of my devices. As my eyes swept over each row, my confidence grew, as I could see empirically that I was desired. (It's not that simple, but it felt like it was.)

Of course, because it’s my job to write about my sex life, I quickly came to realize that my spreadsheet was useful to me on a professional level as well. I could glance back at the data to see how often I’d used various sex toys, to revisit certain sexual memories in order to write about them, and to summarize overall trends in my sexual satisfaction (like that fucking in an alley never resulted in orgasm for me but fucking in my own bed, with my own toys, almost always did). I even started packaging each year’s data in a neat little “sextistics” blog post come December, which always filled me with glee to put together because of how nerdy it all was.

Many people in my life expressed confusion about my spreadsheet habit, including some of the people I had sex with. I used to whip out my phone post-bang to make some notes in my file, sometimes explaining to my date in a jokey tone what I was doing. Mostly it was greeted with slightly bewildered amusement, but sometimes people seemed so mystified that I had a hard time imagining why they were even attracted to me at all if they were put off by sexual nerdiness.

Content note: I talk about sexual coercion / pressure in this essay but it’s not the main focus of the piece, and none of the sex I talk about in this essay was non-consensual, just sometimes a bit reluctant.

I’ve long thought that enthusiasm is one of the most important qualities in a sexual partner. As a person who has what the sexologist Emily Nagoski would call “responsive desire,” I often don’t feel much of a pull toward having sex until someone else has conveyed their own desire and gotten the ball rolling. In other words, whereas for some people, desire precedes the process of pursuing and achieving physical arousal, for me it works the opposite way: it’s often only once I’ve become physically aroused (by touching, or kissing, or porn, or erotica, or whatever) that I actually feel any mental or emotional desire to have sex.

Sixth-grade graduation wasn’t a big deal, but felt like one. We were moving on from elementary school to middle school, a demarcation that many institutions don’t even have. We felt so important, at age 12 – like we’d reached the top of the social pyramid at our little school. We were high on the achievement of it, paired with the anxiety about splitting up and going off to middle schools where our entire mental database of social experiences up to that point could mean nothing in the face of new, shifting dynamics.

We didn’t get drunk at the 6th-grade graduation, because, well, we were 12, and it happened during the daytime, supervised by teachers we'd known since we were 4 years old. But the energy crackling between us did have a drunken fizziness to it, that disinhibiting sense of “this could be our last chance” and “will any of this matter tomorrow?”

1. Betty-Sue hates to inconvenience anyone, least of all her neighbors, for fear of what they might think. But her husband’s company potluck is tonight, she’s signed up to bake a cake, and she’s a quarter-cup short on sugar. Her knocks ring out sharply on the neighbors’ cool blue oak door. She’s biting her rosy pink lower lip anxiously when Mary answers. “Well, Betty-Sue! Aren’t you a pretty picture?” the bouncy-haired brunette exclaims. Her voice is low, almost gravelly. Betty-Sue doesn’t smoke or drink or stay out late partying, in part because she never wanted to become a husky-voiced woman of loose morals, like Mary, whose husband is often out of town and who has no children. Sometimes jazz music drifts out Mary’s window and into Betty-Sue’s late at night when she’s scrubbing her own husband’s shoe prints out of the entryway rug, and the cool-eyed blonde wishes she’d allowed herself bigger ambitions than making an insurance agent’s house sparkle, handsome and dependable though he may be. “I need to borrow a quarter-cup of sugar,” Betty-Sue manages at last, her throat dry. She licks her lips, a nervous tic. Mary gazes at her wolfishly, her Saturday-afternoon bathrobe sagging open just slightly at the bust. “Oh, I’ll give you more than that,” Mary says, and beckons her inside.

2. Sinatra and Brando find themselves at the same poker table, late one night in a hot and smoky casino. The tension is palpable as soon as Frank sits down. Everyone knows about their ongoing feud, the mounting tension on the set of Guys and Dolls, the tussles out behind the MGM soundstage. Frank’s signature blue eyes churn like an angry sea. Marlon’s almost grinning; it’s unclear whether he’s delighted by the cards he’s been dealt or the world-famous singer staring at him with the ill-concealed rage of an elevated barroom brawler. When Brando wins big, and pulls some of Frank’s fortune toward him in the form of cascading colorful chips, Frank’s eyes go volcanic. “Meet me out back in 10 and we’ll settle this like men,” he says, getting up and striding away from the table. Brando pockets his winnings and quirks a smile at the fur-clad dowager on his left. “Think he’ll let me kiss him with tongue this time?” he asks, and the old woman titters like it’s a joke.

3. Joe is ruined. He bet his last fifty dollars on Silver Spoon, the grey racehorse who just twisted her ankle in the final run-up to the finish line. She was overtaken by Royal Orbit in a flash, and now, Joe knows, he’ll have nothing to show for himself when he returns home to his wife and kids – nothing but an empty-eyed stare, a gambling problem and a mortgage payment that’s still well overdue. “Hey, mister, you dropped this,” says some whippersnapper Joe can barely bring into focus through his teary haze. It’s his hat, the wool trilby he wears to the track for good luck. So much for that. It must have slipped off his head sometime while he was writhing around in the unadulterated agony of a gambler whose hunch was dreadfully wrong. “Thanks, kid,” he says distractedly. The kid’s a tall drink of water, dark-haired and tweed-clad. Probably letting off some steam at the track in between classes at the local business college. Joe remembers those days. “Say, how’s about I buy us both a drink at the joint around the corner? Looks like you could use one, mister,” the kid says, his pale eyes wide. Joe would argue but he can’t – not when he doesn’t even have enough money for his usual highball, and not when his head is swimming so much that this young man at the track looks more appealing to him now than Joe’s own wife, whose face he knows will fall when he tells her the bad news. “That sounds swell,” Joe says, reluctantly at first. “I’d like to pay you back somehow, though. We’ll figure something out.”

4. Someone knocks at Marilyn’s dressing room door while she’s crying inside, and she’s immediately flooded with regret. Was she being too loud? Will the studio find out about her emotional problems, her drug dependencies, the affair the tabloids insist she’s having with her director? Worse yet, do they already know? She says “Come in” out of sheer habit, all too welcoming, too worried and worrisome. But it’s just Jane, her costar and friend, whose hazel eyes are wide with concern. “You okay, doll? I heard you crying but I don’t think anyone else did.” Marilyn dabs her tears away with a monogrammed handkerchief her ex-husband had made for her, and that just makes her cry more. When Jane slips inside the dressing room, closes the door behind her and sweeps Marilyn up in her long arms, the blonde realizes she can’t remember a time she’s been this close to another woman, felt this safe with another woman. Every other dame is either a competitor or a critic, or (worse) both at once. Jane is just Jane. “Shhh, baby, it’s okay,” Jane says as Marilyn’s tears continue to fall, and when their lips find each other’s in the soft light, neither of them thinks about whether they’re ruining their lipstick.

5. James Dean shows up at the party in the hills already half-drunk and bone-tired, with a bottle of whiskey under one arm. “Bonne nuit, mademoiselle,” he mutters to Natalie when she opens the door, all gussied up in her best hostess attire. She looks worried but not surprised. After that, the evening slides by in vignettes, with Jimmy first sidling up to young starlets in the conversation pit and then arguing with Sal about film history over old fashioneds. But things really take a turn when Natalie totters into the living room and stage-whispers, “Jimmy, come meet your biggest fan.” Propelled by ego, James staggers to his feet and follows her right to Elvis, who’s still sheepishly untying his shoes in the entryway. “No blue suede tonight?” Jimmy jokes, and Elvis laughs like it’s actually funny, like he hasn't heard it hundreds of times before. “Oh, stop!” Natalie half-shrieks, half-giggles. “Elvis loved your latest picture, Jimmy. He’s dying to talk about it.” She wanders back toward the group, leaving the two men alone in the foyer to gaze at each other, one warmly, one coolly. “I’m a fan of yours too, y’know,” Jimmy offers over the rim of his glass. “Thought you looked mighty kissable on the Sullivan show, if I’m honest.” Elvis blushes a little, glances this way and that, and then backs Jimmy up against the wall by the door. “I had the same thought about you in Rebel,” he whispers low against James’ whiskey-wet lips, and suddenly both men are proving the wildest rumors that’ve ever been printed about either of them, and not caring for a second about it. Somewhere nearby in a shadowy corridor, Sal Mineo watches, grins, and tries not to make a sound.

It usually happens about a year after my last tattoo was inked onto my skin. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less. But it always hits me eventually.

The feeling of getting a tattoo is so specific, so weird, that I find it hard to convey to people who haven’t experienced it. Obviously it varies from person to person (and tattoo artist to tattoo artist), but in my particular body, it feels like:

• someone stabbing me very quickly, very shallowly, over and over again, in one contained area, with a remarkably tiny needle

• a sharp sunburn or other sudden burn on the location

• the type of pain that, in a sadomasochistic kink scene, would make me think about saying “yellow,” like it was a viable option on the distant horizon, but not actually say it

Due to being overworked and overwhelmed in both my professional life and my personal life, lately I’ve been having a tough time with sex.

I am a person who likes sex (as you may have inferred from, y’know, my whole deal), so it always raises some flags for me when I notice myself feeling resistant or closed-off to it. It’s like a dam suddenly going up in a normally free-flowing river – where did that come from?

I think I own more red lipsticks than I own any other type of item. (Well, except for sex toys, but that’s because I review them professionally, okay?!)

I’ve just always liked red lipstick, for as long as I can remember, so I’ve accumulated lots of them over the years. Like a little black dress or a versatile vibrator, you could be just fine owning only one, and many people do – but you could just as easily own dozens and use each in slightly different ways.

Note: I wanted to perhaps write something about pregnancy or abortion this week, on account of the terrible horrible no-good news out of the Supreme Court. But honestly, I am so exhausted by the aggravation of it all that I don’t feel up to it. I can, however, write about some sex I had recently, and encourage you to donate to an abortion fund if you're able. Now back to our scheduled programming.

One of the hardest things about being in a long-distance relationship is saying goodbye at the end of a visit. It can be vexing to even wrap your mind around the fact that this person, who you’ve only just gotten used to seeing in three dimensions again, is about to go back to essentially existing inside your phone for a while. Sometimes the sadness drifts in preemptively over the days before a scheduled farewell; other times, it lays in wait until the moments right before, triggering a teary meltdown and a deep, primal longing to shout, “Please don’t go.”

My spouse and I live 500 miles apart, and have experimented with many, many different techniques for mitigating painful goodbyes over the nearly 4 and a half years we’ve been together. We’ve instituted end-of-visit debriefs, where we discuss over drinks or brunch the best things we did together recently and when we might see each other next. We’ve started saying goodbye only in private locations, ever since we tried to do it in a New York City subway station once and found that it just compounded the problem. We’ve made a habit of speaking by phone the night one of us arrives back home, as if to reaffirm that our connection still sparkles despite the distance.

1. If they can’t make me laugh, they probably can’t make me come.

2. Never show up late to a first date; it makes it seem like you don’t care, or don’t respect the other person’s time. If you do have to be late for whatever reason, send a properly apologetic text as soon as you know you’ll be late, containing your ETA if possible.

3. Dates where you can actually talk are better than dates where you’re just watching something or doing an activity side-by-side, at least if your goal is to get to know the person you’re on a date with.

4. Always bring condoms, lube, and a small vibrator, because you never know.

5. Someone who refuses to accept a “no” in one context, however innocuous (e.g. “No, I won’t let you pay your half of the bill even though you have firmly expressed that you want to”), will often refuse to accept a “no” in worse contexts.

6. If the sex is bad initially, communicate more, practice more, and it’ll get better.

7. If it doesn’t get better with communication and practice, it’s probably best to move on, assuming sex matters to you.

8. Same goes for conversations: it’s normal if they’re a bit stilted at first, while you’re getting to know each other’s rhythms. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a mismatch, although it might, especially if it continues.

9. Making out in an alley after a date is a great way to assess potential physical/sexual compatibility without needing to invite the person to your home right away if you're not ready to do that.

10. Bring up the things that matter to you as early as possible/as early as feels appropriate, so as to weed out the people who aren’t on your level. This includes anything from political beliefs to sexual preferences to whether or not you want kids someday.

11. Always tell a friend, prior to a date, where you’re going, the full name of your date (if you know it), any other contact info you have for them, and when you expect to get back home.

12. Asking follow-up questions is an extremely underrated conversational skill. Do it more.

13. Using someone’s name in conversation – not a lot, but here and there – can feel memorably flirty because it gets their attention and fires off a little dopamine in their brain every time.

14. If you wear a low-hanging necklace, your date will probably stare at your chest at some point, but maybe you want that.

15. If someone asks you zero, or very few, questions about yourself, don’t see them again (unless you like them enough to put in the labor of running the whole conversation). You deserve to date people who find you interesting and know how to show it.

16. Different people feel differently about having sex on the first date; the important thing is to figure out how it makes you feel (or how you think it would make you feel), and make decisions accordingly. Slut-shaming and prude-shaming are both useless bullshit; you get to make your own sexual decisions based on what feels right for you.

17. It’s totally okay to ask someone what they’re looking for romantically/sexually. It might seem like an overly forward question, especially on a first date, but it’s important stuff to know upfront so neither of you end up wasting your time.

18. People tend to be on their best behavior on the first few dates, so if you’re already seeing hints of emotional manipulation, control issues, anger problems, etc., just know that they’re probably only gonna get worse from there.

19. The best, kindest, and truest way to reject someone is to make it about yourself. “I had a great time on our date, but I didn’t really feel the connection I’m looking for. Best of luck!”

20. That said, if you are rejecting someone for a very specific reason related to something legitimately egregious that they did or said (like being a dick to the waiter, making a racist joke, or taking weeks to text you back), it’s okay to tell them why. This will hopefully give them the kick in the pants they need to address that behavior so it won’t ruin their future romantic prospects.

21. Playing mind games is dull, exhausting, and often a sign that you don’t feel entirely safe or comfortable with the person you’re seeing. If you like them, let them know. If you feel like texting them, text them (within reason – use your social judgment). Don’t beat around the bush if that’s not who you are.

22. Put your phone away while you’re on a date, and focus fully on the person you’re talking to. If you literally can’t do that, because you’re waiting on some important medical news or you’re on call at work or something, maybe it’s not the best time to be going on a date.

23. “How’s your day been?” is a simple, great opening question if you don’t know how to get the conversational ball rolling on an early date.

24. It is okay (and often actually appreciated) to put your intentions and desires out there in a way that is clear and open, so long as you do so in such a way that the person can easily reject or postpone your advances if they want to (e.g. “I’d really like to kiss you right now; how would you feel about that?”).

25. Don’t assume your date drinks alcohol, or coffee, when picking a date location. (Offering a few different choices can be a way of handling this issue.) If your date opts not to drink booze while actually on the date, do not ask them why, as the reason is almost certainly personal.

26. Different people have different ways of texting – style, syntax, frequency, emoji usage, etc. – and it might take you a while to figure out what a new person’s “deal” is, texting-wise. Don’t freak out over a minor punctuation issue or delayed responses when you don’t even know what “normal” texting looks like for this person; they might just be very busy, or very direct, or unaware that the emoji keyboard exists.

27. If you haven’t already, glance at the news, Twitter trending topics, etc. before leaving for your date, so that you’ll have stuff to talk about even if the conversation has trouble getting off the ground.

28. If it doesn’t make you feel jealous or weird to do so, it can be fun to ask a date from Tinder, Bumble, etc. what their other experiences have been like on those apps. Often talking about this can be a goofy way to bond over the nearly-universal difficulties involved in dating.

29. It’s more important to feel confident and comfortable than it is to “look hot.”

30. Resist the temptation to censor the weirdest, nerdiest parts of yourself. When you act like someone else, you attract people who would be a good match for… someone else. When you act like you, you attract people who would be a good match for you. And that’s what dating is all about. Right?