Ten [Illogical] Laws of the Dating Universe (compiled by Andrea and Rachel)
1. Giving up brings love into your life.
We think it's because you stop caring you actually start acting like yourself which is so much more attractive than the fake faces we put on to try to make ourselves interesting. Example: my roommate. Beginning of the year "I hate boys. I will not date. I don't want to." Three weeks later she had a boyfriend.2. Dating comes in droughts or floods. Famine or feast.
Case and point: my last three days in Provo I had three dates. The entire four months before that I had four dates. And two of them I asked, one was a blind set up and one was a spontaneous one that we weren't quite sure of who was with who until the doorstep.3. The people you are interested in are rarely the people that have what you want or need.
Girls want someone stable but often overlook the engineering major for the adventurous and fun boy who has yet to actually pick a degree. Or boys want to have dinners when they get home but they date the girl who pretty but burns her grilled cheese and overlook the girl who rocks the dinner group.4. If you say "I don't like, I don't want or I will never" you are almost guaranteed to fall for someone with that characteristic.
I always always say two physical qualities first when talking about things I am attracted to in boys. I always swear I can never like someone without them. And yet I spent a year and a half of college interested in a boy with neither.5. Scarcity is supposed to drive up price, however in dating scarcity drives up demand.
When leaving town, when leaving on missions, or when making yourself unavailable in whatever way the other gender finally notices you. Why?!6. Boys typically make their move when girls describe themselves as anything but attractive.
Example. Freshman year I got asked on a date when wearing my glasses, hair crazy everywhere and covered in chalk. I have a picture to prove that I looked goofy. Or right before I left. I was dreadfully sick for several days. Gave up on hair and makeup and one of my guy friends who'd been around through it all decided to ask me out.
7. Opposites don't actually attract. At least not effectively.
People may try but they rarely find themselves in a successful relationship with someone who is significantly different from themselves.8. However, rule #7 is nullified regarding height.
Except with height. For some reason short girls date tall boys quite regularly.9. What girls and boys find attractive (and unattractive) is rarely what the other thinks it would be.
Like fishnet/lacy tights. Turns out my whole ward thinks they look awful. One of the boys polled. Using my roommate as an example. She thought she was hot stuff in them. They said they reminded them of "grandmas, spiderwebs". Maybe we should try to communicate about these things.10. There actually aren't any laws in the dating universe.
After all of that. There actually aren't any laws. None of these are infallible and there are twenty exceptions to each. Go figure.
The Asterisk (*) Clause
The Asterisk Clause is a concept Andrea and I named as such and that I thought would be appropriate to describe in conjunction with our laws of the dating universe.
When going on a first date or getting into a relationship, people often describe their life plans. I'm going to grad school, I'm leaving on a mission, etc... However, what Andrea I discussed is that for most people there is an asterisk clause there. I'm going to grad school*. And the asterisk says *but if this works out I'll stay, I'll wait, I'll apply somewhere else, you'll come with me, we'll make it work. Meaning that this is my plan but if this works out I'm willing to work things out.
The problem is you can't say that on a first date or sometimes even in the beginning stages of a relationships without sounding weird. So instead the guy just gets scared off by this girl who has her life already planned with seemingly no room for him in it. But he would also hate to hear that she's just ho-huming around. It's quite the dilemma. So we wish everyone would just understand that there is an asterisk clause. So go for it. If it works out, we'll figure out the rest later. But we'll never know if you give up just because you hear that I have plans.
