Dealbreaker

Your mother was right, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. While she may have been referring to a job interview, the sentiment rings just as true when it comes to dating. Besides, what job is more important than the position of future apartment key holder? Trade your business casual attire and meticulously worded résumé for your lucky cardigan and charismatic small talk. In a loud, dimly lit bar, meaningful conversations are hard to come by, and in-depth evaluations of someone's personality are basically nonexistent. That's why we are limited to judge people on their most obvious means of representation: the first impression—the way they dress, style their hair, smell, and whatever small talk transcends the pumping base. All of this mixing and mingling can be met with indignation, indifference, desperation, or anything in between. However, all you need to know about dating is that regardless of how you feel about it, it is one of the most important parts of your early-mid-late-twenties. It lures you to spend too much time getting dressed and too much money on overpriced cocktails and have too many quarter-life crises. After all, the prospect of meeting someone you want to get in bed with at night is what makes you get out of bed in the morning!

So, here is your chance to shine, and lucky for you it couldn't be more convenient: Birthday Party for Your Best Friend at a Bar Near Your Apartment. You have all the right tools: clever anecdotes about your relationship with a mutual friend, a lighthearted take on politics, a charming story about the puppy you adopted (with accompanying photos on your cell phone). Your style is hip, yet casual, effortless, and approachable. Your friends are quick to describe you as a catch and eager to introduce you to equally eligible parties.

However, the star of this show is the biome of the dating climate: the Bar. Most patrons follow a similar ritual: scan the room, make small talk, check for text messages, go to the bathroom, order drink, and repeat. Men and women at this stage in life aren't particularly coy when it comes to preliminary mating rituals. It is perfectly acceptable to abandon some social decorum in exchange for the potential to get laid. Otherwise respectable men will hoot and holler at ladies who they find pleasing, while otherwise dignified women find themselves dancing on bar tops with reckless abandon. The crowd unites over their common goal, bopping in unison, buying rounds of drinks, throwing in a fist pump to the chorus of "Sweet Caroline."

You are forgiven for your indulgence in vices, knocking back whiskey after whiskey, cigarette after cigarette, nacho after nacho.You attack from humankind's most primitive state of mind with the force of natural selection lighting a fire under your ass. All this so you can hopefully, someday, maybe, like, far in the future, find someone to actually (gulp) settle down with.

Enter your prospect. You squeeze past the crowd for a better look, and as far as you can tell there's no immediate red flags—friendly, attractive, well-dressed, smiling. No dumb accessories as a desperate attempt to fit in with a peer group, no banal small talk, no bad smells. Suddenly you find yourself singing along to the Top Forty, swapping drinks, munching on maraschino cherries, giggling as you judge the room full of idiots. A hand finds its way to a knee, an arm around a shoulder. Could it be? Have you found the one person in this bar that you wouldn't be kicking yourself to be waking up next to? Maybe, but don't be celebrating too soon. They may seem to be miraculously devoid of any superficial Dealbreakers, but you've still got more investigating to do. There are plenty more deals to break and only an hour until last call. Get to work, boss.

So, what you're telling me is that you felt an intense attraction to me when you saw me from across the supermarket as I was "reaching gracefully for a head of lettuce." Okay, well maybe I'm being naive here, but couldn't you have told me that in person? If I recall correctly, that particular shopping trip took me forty-five minutes (I guess that old saying is right, don't go to a grocery store hungry), meaning you had the better part of an hour to approach me face-to-face, or as you'd say, IRL? Maybe that would have been a little awkward, but less so than expecting to make a romantic connection with someone you were too scared to approach in the physical world. What did you think would happen: I would somehow read this (because you think I'm as crazy as you and I peruse Missed Connections looking to see if someone's watching me touch lettuce) and decide that it's time to fall in love with a Craigslist Troll? You don't need to Ask Jeeves, I'll tell you right now: it ain't gonna happen.

At least these are aiding someone's vision: mine. I can see that you are a pretentious asshole.

You're right, the funniest thing you ever did was grow a shitty mustache. If you commit to this joke any longer you won't be allowed to live within a thousand feet of an elementary school.

I'm getting an overall vibe here. It's not necessarily that you're dangerous, it's just that you would be someone that danger would follow. Think person of interest in a murder investigation. Maybe you're not the one who poisoned the drink, but you're the one who provided the poison, or gave a thorough and informative tutorial about how to make it. Does that make sense? Look, I can't help the way I feel, so please don't be angry with me or follow me to my car and make animal noises at me. Not that I'm saying that's something you do, just that it's something you're probably capable of. Like, you could do that in your sleep. Also, please don't kill me in my sleep.