Wading in to the chocolate morass

As Zoom has noted, these are the dog days of blogging. Oh, hey: I'm a dog. A dog about to risk life and limb by weighing in on the Great Chocolate Controversy.

Our Audrey is a singularity, a force of nature, an iconoclast who sashays to the beat of an entirely different drummer. It's why we of the Irregulars love her. So, while we may not agree with her contention that milk chocolate is the preferred option for romance, we respect it utterly. Ummm, possibly while eating dark chocolate.

Still, it got me thinking. Chocolate, when not served up as an adjunct to love, has - more than occasionally - been mentioned as an outright substitute. Is one better than the other? Obviously, the ESIs needed to research the great milk/dark divide further. Exotic locales are always good for research scams fact-finding missions, and if chocolate be the food of love and Paris la grande ville de l'amour, where better to investigate that love/gestalt/thingy...? Surely, they'd have things to say about it. After all, they speak a romance language...

I counted up my paltry collection of air mile points and found them (greatly) wanting, but it turned out, coincidentally, that the Amazon and 7th Heathen were going anyway. Hmmm. Not the junket I was hoping for, but at least it'd get quick results. Wringing grants outta the Canada Council can take eons, and the Amazon is admirably efficient and goal-oriented.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry and at great personal risk, the dauntless duo agreed to go to Maxim's (yes, that Maxim's...) They returned with the biscuit tin in the photo: "36 fine lace crêpes dipped in dark and milk chocolates". *

Yay! I clawed it open feverishly, alert for clues. Damn! With fine impartiality, and an eye to the tourist trade, those crafty Parisiennes had packed in 18 milk chocolate and 18 dark chocolate crêpes, individually wrapped. But wait! The dark chocolate ones were arrayed at the top of the tin. What can it all mean, Audrey...?

* I suspect I may owe a goodly number of these to Woodsy. Payback for scarfing the dark chocolate stash in her purse during a, ummm, legitimate emergency...

RNDP 12: Romantic Gestures that Score with Audrey

the picnic by Norma Desmond

Audrey, ESI's cultural ambassador, reports on recent fieldwork experiences and the results of listening to sage counsel:

Romantic gestures – Part 1

My boyfriends have typically been very reluctant to make romantic gestures. I always felt that it was not for me to tell a boyfriend to be more demonstrative. I reasoned that some men are just naturally more demonstrative than others. I decided that maybe the kind of men who were attracted to me were bold and sexy but not romantic.

A recent trip to Italy, though, caused me to question my theories. I had several dates with a bold and sexy Italian man. I was surprised to find that he was also a romantic. This man played romantic Latin music in the car; he took me for a cocktail at the stylish Café de Paris; he suggested a sunset stroll at the Piazzale Michelangelo and kissed me passionately at a particularly scenic spot; he shared his gelato with me; and he used flowery Italian phrases to tell me how much he desired me.

When I arrived back in Ottawa, I told my friends about my dates. Fourth Dwarf counselled me to choose an “attentive” man for a boyfriend, but to choose a man closer to home.

Well, I took his advice and my new boyfriend is the most romantic man I have ever met. He tells me frequently how much he loves being with me, and he makes many romantic gestures. I thought I would share some of these romantic gestures, in the hope that it will improve someone else’s search for true love.

Audrey’s top-ten list of romantic gestures

1. Buy her flowers – even carnations (my boyfriend gave me gerberas on our 4th date)
2. Buy her chocolate (esp. milk-chocolate) [4D: We're going to get letters about this one.]
3. Take her to the movies and only let her pay for the popcorn.
4. Have her over for a BBQ – just the two of you.
5. Meet her for lunch on a workday.
6. Take her for a romantic dinner (we went to Trattoria Caffe Italia on our 5th date).
7. Drive her home from work, even if you won’t be spending the evening together.
8. Visit her family with her and act like you are not anxious to leave after one hour.
9. Make her tea.
10. Tell her she is beautiful.
    

RNDP Spoiler: Women are from Venus, Dwarfs are from Pluto

So, I was skootching around the intertubes this morning, favourite breakfast nearby and doggy eyebrows deeply furrowed over the true import of the latest Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm treatise from that whacked-out Dwarf ummm, my esteemed blogging associate, when I fell across a news item that caused me to spew milk and Cap'n Crunch all over the monitor.* It was a blinding, capitalized, Eureka Moment. At least until I wiped up the mess.

It seems that after last year's scandalous astronomical furor in which Pluto lost its planetary status (You missed that? How strange.) astronomers have now decided to compromise and call all dwarf planets 'Plutoids'.

Suddenly I got it! I see where 4th Dwarf's RNDP is going, and why he's so desperate to get buy-in. I mean, he's been flogging this thing hard! See, many dating paradigms in the past few years have referenced this catchily-labelled (and lucrative) little trope. But if Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, where in the world(s) do dwarfs come from? The answer has to be the Dwarf Planet. (For proof, I refer you to Wikipedia, which makes a huge point about Pluto's eccentricity) And Pluto has been planet non grata since the big astronomical society dust-up. Which is about, I must point out, when this RNDP stuff started.

Obviously, if the the Short Guy is ever gonna get a date again, he's got to persuade women that he's still got standing somewhere in the relationship cosmos. Or at least the solar system. And regaining some kind of status for Pluto is a big part of it. I see it all now. He's done it!

Welcome back to the dating game, my short-ass friend. Good luck with that. But I hafta warn ya: the women you date from here on, will probably only be interested in Plutonic relationships...

* For a definitive 11,000-word treatise on how best to partake of Cap'n Crunch, please see Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Don't remember the page. Sorry.

RNDP 11: Dating Design Patterns

Our next stop in the quest for an RNDP takes us to City Flirting: the Flirt Blog and a post from December 2005, about a year and a half before the blog went dormant. In You Had Me At: "Encapsulated Big Fat Opening", flirting scholar Dan, is told that his tendency to share his knowledge of astronomy is why he doesn't get dates. (Dan's mistake was trying to explain why Venus is both the morning star and the evening star but never the midnight star by explaining "...it's always within 45 degrees of the sun." I can attest that explaining the position of Venus in the sky and other astronomical phenomena by instead using salt and pepper shakers and beer coasters has a disarming effect on certain females even if they still don't understand.)

Dan tries to explain that he is not a true geek because if he was he would invent a robot companion to date or he would invent a new dating paradigm. (I believe this means that I am still in good standing to be considered a true geek because as you know, by the end of this series, we will have not only a new dating paradigm but a revolutionary new dating paradigm. I don't believe robots will have anything to do with the new paradigm.)

In the next sentence he says he doesn't have to invent a new dating paradigm because Solveig Haugland has and she has written a book about it.

Dating Design Patterns is modelled on Design Patterns, a manual for developers of object-oriented software. It is essentially a set of techniques for males to be more effective at courting females using the traditional North American dating paradigms of the late 20th and early 21st Century. It offers a number of possible schema for socially-awkward males to adopt. Dan identifies his favourites as:

Half Bad Boy Plus Protocol: Structuring one's appeal based on equal parts considerate gentlemanly attributes and "bad boy" behavior or facade.

Trojan Proxy: An extremely effective, low-risk, high-planning pattern for connecting through a third-party safe proxy. Strategies include children, pets, female friends and married male friends.

Unexpected Resource God: Maintain a large pool of resources women typically need, and create a connection through replying to requests or by broadcasting a list of resources. A large rucksack is recommended.

Although Solveig's patterns are not a new paradigm, there are fellows who can use this advice. I have two specific tips for implementing the "Unexpected Resource God" pattern:

1. A wealthy man I know drove a Volvo station wagon. "Why don't you get a flashy car to attract the women," I asked him. "Are you kidding?" he replied. "With this station wagon they are always asking me to take them to Ikea!"
2. If you go to Spins'n'Needles, sit near an electric outlet, and plug in a $2.45 hot glue gun, you will have hotties coming over all night. (Next Ottawa event is July 25 at the Legion on Kent Street)
   

Topic for next emergency meeting

OK guys, I'm going to be calling a meeting soon to discuss this. I also want to discuss my difficulties reintegrating into the workplace and how you can all support me.