The Rules of Dating

NOTE: This was written several months ago, but found it so interesting that I had to post it.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that the rules of dating will never change. I reached this conclusion by having a completely random conversation with a man who shared a table with me at Starbucks. Let me preface by saying this man must’ve been in his fifties, maybe late forties. He striked up the conversation by telling me about the dialogue he was replaying in his head. And decided to tell me all about it.
He had a female friend that he would attend social events with, parties, dinners, etc., because they were both single and was appropriate to go to said events with one another. He then goes on to tell me that after a year or so of the friendship, he enlists his other male friend on advice because he has developed romantic feelings for the woman. The friend tells him to tell his female friend exactly how he feels, so he does. He tells his female friend that he finds her very attractive and wants to be lovers with her. She replies that she just wants to be friends. Fine.
A few weeks later, the man continues, he calls his friend up to go out to dinner, telling her that he’s just going dinner, telling her that he’s just going with or without her but to let her know she’s invited. She’s proud of him for going even without her and declines. Well, he says, I’m not really going alone; I just wanted your company. So he asks me, why is it that just because we’re not lovers doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy you and what you’re all about? Because women are scared of the fact that he is romantically interested.
He continues on about a book he read on body language. That right there alters, or more accurately, shatters all of my pre-conceived notions about men, they actually buy books on the subject of women. He tells about some of the things he learned from the book, and can remember the name the author. The things he tells me seems accurate, and some of the things he tells me about shocks him, and confuses him even more about how to approach the opposite sex. An example he uses is the art of staring. Men aren’t supposed to stare at other men unless they are gay, or want to fight. But women use staring to catch a mans attention, and if the man doesn’t act on that stare soon enough, all is lost.
Then he goes on to tell me about the three-date rule. Inevitably, you will after three dates with a person, move “forward” in the relationship, or just remain friends. Then there is the rule that when you have a really great with someone that you can’t just tell that person that you really like them and you had a really great time, but instead you have to wait to weeks to call that person because you don’t want to seem desperate. And this whole time, I’m thinking to myself, that the rules of dating are almost identical to my generation, and that in my lifetime they will never change. And I was even more shocked that this man felt so inclined to tell me about his love life. So where were me and this man at the end of this conversation? Chuckling, and even more confused than when we began.