The great water crisis is making headlines in Dundee and surrounds.
But while the H20 levels plummet, the D8 levels also are taking a plunge.
Frowning are you? Well, the D8 levels refer to the dip in the standard and quality of dating. Now I am not referring to being in a relationship. No, I’m referring to the threshold of a partnership, and this is the first date.
Now dates vary in style, location, and affordability. They can begin with picnics in parks opposite your house, with a cool blanket, Fritos, jelly beans and a younger brother escort.
They evolve to ice cream at the Wimpy with three females friends all clamoring to be in the chair next to you, while your date sits opposite the cackling gang, puzzling over the need for ‘backup or escorts’ and thinking it’s just a date, not a lobola meeting. Then again Indian parents see it differently. It is not just a date and the boy with gelled bangs and scrawny arms poking out of his tiny Levi’s vest can not be trusted.
Dates later move on to dinner at exquisite restaurants with more knives and forks at the side of your plate then food in it.
Dinner kicks off well, except the foul taste of a martini, (a drink you have never had before but feel it would go well with his Bisquit xo cognac, an eye for an eye, liver damage for liver damage). The night ends with a scenic drive through lovely Pretoria and the grand finale is a picnic in a lush park with a night cap. It would have been perfect – a one of its kind – if it had not been done to dozens of women ranging from 17 years, 11 months and 20 days to 49 years, 11 months and 20 days. The same procedure right down to the foul-tasting wine goes – only the colour of the fitted blazer changes.
Now that is a story for the next column but, nonetheless, that’s what innocent picnics evolve into.
Dates have no set standards, or rules, though I think there should be. The rules should be thus: communication should be a fore-fronter, even if its about the weather, I do not sit there and act like one of the Madam Tussauds’ models.
Dates should be for two people. No bystanders or bodyguards allowed and definitely no parents, I don’t care if your mum is overprotective or your dad needs company.
Dates should at least be 200 meters away from your home. I am all for saving money and having fun at home but not for a first date.
Try to dress up or at least bath. There’s a famous Hindi saying that goes; “oppare oppare beauty queen, nitche nitche tootall machine”, which means “up up beauty queen down down broken machine”. Don’t be an example of this saying.
Gifts are not mandatory but if you insist on getting them put some effort in. Graveyard flowers are a no-no. The variety is limited and the bouquets look dead.
Now some might call me old fashioned but I’m sure agony Aya will agree with me, I mean if these rules existed, she would not have to deal with hordes of failed dates and offer two-cents comments to mend broken hearts and egos.
So the next time you decide to go on a first date, please keep the above in mind to contribute to the new campaign, #feesmustfall and #datestandardsmustrise.
