Thursday, May 7, 2009

How to Get Out of a Blind Date

Step 1

Make an escape plan with a friend ahead of time. If you are one of those fatalistic people that think every blind date could potentially be a bad one, then you know that planning ahead for disaster is sometimes necessary.Before you go out on your blind date, plan ahead with a good friend for a possible escape plan. If your blind date starts to turn sour, excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Once there, text your friend a code that you have determined ahead of time. It could be something as simple as "how are you?"Once back at the table, your friend will know to wait 10 minutes, then call you. On the other end of the line, your friend will be sobbing, in emotional ruin because something terrible has happened. You must rush to your friend's side to help them through this crisis. Any reasonable person will understand this situation, and you've gotten out of your terrible blind date, Scott-free.

Step 2

Wear them out. If you can feel that the blind date is lethargic, you can always make them want to go home, so the responsibility doesn't rest on your shoulders for ending the date prematurely. One way to do this is to run them ragged.
Rush through your dinner at a sprinter's pace, and tell your date that you can't wait to get out of the restaurant so they can move on to the next item of the evening. If you have something stationary like a movie planned, tell your date you want to ditch the movie and walk around a local park instead. Keep the activities physically taxing and before you know it, he'll be looking at his watch and making excuses to head home.

Step 3

Convince them that you're crazy. Nothing's a bigger turn-off than a loony bird and if you can convince them that you're crazy, you may have a quick ticket out of your blind date.Start off slow with some stories about your family. Maybe something about your unnatural attachment to your mother or a disturbing story about camp when you were little.After a while, start displaying subtle but odd behavior, like polishing your butter knife every 30 seconds. After about half an hour of this strange behavior, your date will very likely be eager to find the waiter for the check and you'll be able to move on as well.

Step 4

Be honest. The best, if not the most difficult, way to get out of a blind date is by simply telling the other person the truth. This can be the hardest route because honesty is a hard pill to swallow.No one wants to hear that they aren't right for someone else, or that something they planned and looked forward to isn't working out. It isn't fun for either person to give or receive this news, but in the long run, it is the best policy.They will always remember you as the one guy that didn't feed them a line or lie to them and ultimately that reflects on you as being an ethical person.Who knows, maybe they'll end up talking about you to one of their friends who is right for you and something good will come of that, instead.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Fringles.com Quote of the day

Fringles.com Quote of the day as it pertains to the world of online dating !!

Is it an excellence in your love that it can love only the extraordinary, the rare? If it were love’s merit to love the extraordinary, then God would be — if I dare say so — perplexed, for to Him the extraordinary does not exist at all. The merit of being able to love only the extraordinary is therefore more like an accusation, not against the extraordinary nor against love, but against the love which can love only the extraordinary. Perfection in the object is not perfection in the love. Erotic love is determined by the object; friendship is determined by the object; only love of one’s neighbor is determined by love. Therefore genuine love is recognizable by this, that its object is without any of the more definite qualifications of difference, which means that this love is recognizable only by love.

~ Søren Kierkegaard ~

Monday, May 4, 2009

The 20 best date movies ever

20 House of Flying Daggers
Zhang Yimou, 2004

Love is a dangerous game in this martial-arts spectacular. In Tang dynasty China, a handsome young warrior rescues a beautiful blind woman allied with a rebel army. As they flee the pursuing government officers, inevitably they fall in love. But both are harbouring secrets from each other – can love survive the truth? The breath-taking battle sequences make this the perfect date movie for people who like a little fight in their relationships.
WENDY IDE

19 An Officer and a Gentleman
Taylor Hackford, 1982

A rare chick-flick-guy-movie hybrid, this tale of a wannabe aviator, Zack Mayo (Richard Gere), and his agonising year in flight-school, has bar brawls, punch-ups and endless scenes of “Mayonaaaise” being abused by gunnery sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett Jr). Yet it’s also loaded with love stuff, courtesy of Mayo’s local hottie (Debra Winger). Despite the rousing final scene, note that the real romance is between Mayo and Foley.
"Odd combination of new-fangled performers": how The Times reviewed it, 1983
KEVIN MAHER

18 Shortbus
John Cameron Mitchell, 2006

A bit of a baptism of fire, this one. If you can get past the opening titles – a riot of unsimulated sexual acts – this film has an emotionally satisfying core that transcends the orgies and erect members. The adventures of a group of carnally creative New Yorkers, Shortbus provides an inclusive, unexpectedly romantic look at unconventional relationships.
WENDY IDE

17 Dark Water
Hideo Nakata, 2002

Horror films make great date movies – what better excuse to grab part of your date’s anatomy than some hell-spook lunging at you from the screen? And they don’t get much creepier than this Japanese ghost story about a single mother, her little girl and an apartment block with a sinister damp patch. Rather than the repeated jumps of an American horror, the film relies on a gradual build-up of unbearable tension.
WENDY IDE

16 Jerry Maguire
Cameron Crowe, 1996

Crowe’s sports movie romance is ideal for date-movie virgins. Just slushy enough to jerk some tears, it bounces the sports agent Tom Cruise (at his most appealing) between Cuba Gooding Jr’s ambitious American footballer and Renée Zellweger’s idealistic assistant. Yes, the comedy is understated, and the football scenes are only vaguely exciting. But the payoff is Cruise facing Zellweger across the living room, baring his soul. “I love you.” Sniffle. “You, complete, me!”
KEVIN MAHER

15 Crazy/Beautiful
John Stockwell, 2001

Stockwell’s ostensibly formulaic movie is about a rich Pacific Palisades wild child (Kirsten Dunst) falling for a hard-working Latino (Jay Hernandez) from the wrong side of LA. And yet, beneath the star-crossed premise lies a remarkable ability to tap into the pain, the confusion and the sheer eye-moistening beauty of first teenage love. When Dunst blubs, half in shock, half in wonder, to Hernandez, “I think I’m in love with you!” it’s a cue to entwine fingers with your partner.
KEVIN MAHER

14 Monsoon Wedding
Mira Nair, 2001

Picking a movie about a wedding might set the alarm bells ringing, particularly if this is a first date, but what the heck. Vibrant and messy, joyful but with an honest approach to the characters’ problems, Monsoon Wedding is a delight. And amid the chaos of a big Punjabi wedding a heartswelling love blossoms between the wedding planner P. K. Dubey and the family maid Alice. Pure romance.
WENDY IDE

13 Ghost
Jerry Zucker, 1990

A date-movie heavyweight, Ghost contains the tragic death of a paramour, love from beyond the grave, and Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore getting jiggy by the potter’s wheel. Thus, when Swayze’s dead accounts manager eventually tells Moore’s blubbing artist, in the ghostly climax: “I love you, Molly”, it’s hard not to go gooey inside. An evening of slush beckons as you and your date promise to haunt each other after death.
KEVIN MAHER

12 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Michel Gondry, 2004

Gondry’s movie is strong medicine for couples unsure of their long-term prospects. It charts the implosion of the relationship between nerdy Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and idiosyncratic Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). It also posits a brutal world where sexual betrayal and manipulation are the norm. Nonetheless, in there lives the notion that we return to the romantic battle-field because the prospect of feeling love is greater than any pain. Which is kind of cute.
KEVIN MAHER

11 Dirty Dancing
Emile Ardolino, 1987

This fantastically preposterous movie about a group of rebel dancers lead by Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle is a dual purpose date flick. Johnny’s bad-ass attempts at liberating Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) through the power of dance and awful dialogue (“Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”) can be enjoyed with a wild ironic sneer, or as a cosy warm-up to a night of beginner’s salsa. Either way, you’re on to a winner.
KEVIN MAHER

10 Scream
Wes Craven, 1996

Just because Wes Craven’s self-aware teen slasher movie mischievously references numerous Hollywood horror movies it doesn’t mean that there aren’t some real scares in this smart-aleck revamping of the serial killer flick. The combination of date-grabbing narrative shocks, edge-of-the-seat tension and some very funny in-jokes make this an ideal date flick for fans of popcorn horror.
WENDY IDE

9 North by Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock, 1959

It’s all about the power of suggestion here. After two hours of frenetic pursuits and international espionage, the mild-mannered advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and the hot blonde super-spy Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) finally get steamy on a transcontinental love train. They kiss, they embrace and, just before the final credits, their phallic train plunges proudly into a gaping tunnel. You then turn, smiling, to your date. Yup, it’s that time of the night.
"Expert bit of film-making": The Times 1959 review
KEVIN MAHER

8 A bout de souffle
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960

This French New Wave standard bearer about a Bogart-obsessed criminal (Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his idealistic American moll (Jean Seberg) sets the perfect tone for ironic hipster romantics. Chunks of narrative time are spent in a Parisian bedroom, where the seminaked Seberg and Belmondo debate happiness, freedom and intimacy. It remains fresh today, just on the right side of sexy-cool.
"A film that holds the imagination": read The Times review from 1960
KEVIN MAHER

7 In the Mood For Love
Wong Kar Wai, 2000

Languid, lush, balmy and undercut with an exquisite melancholy – this has to be one of the most visually gorgeous cinema romances of all time. In Hong Kong, 1962, a journalist, Mr Chow (Tony Leung), and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung) are neighbours who discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Flung together by the betrayal, the pair fall for each other. The buttoned-up repression of their feelings triggers a smouldering, slow-burning build-up of sexual tension. Phew.
WENDY IDE

6 Before Sunrise/Before Sunset
Richard Linklater, 1995/2004

Watch either film on its own or treat yourself to a double bill of the wordy, witty banter between Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), strangers in the night whose stolen moments together spark with shared ideas and mutual yearning. The sequel, set ten years after the pair’s first meeting, is even more poignant: experience has tempered the boundless optimism of youth; there’s less pretension and more genuine feeling in the snatched conversations during their daylong adventure in Paris. Gorgeous stuff.
WENDY IDE

5 Sideways
Alexander Payne, 2004

This is the perfect date movie for diehard cynics who, deep down, want to believe in the transformative power of love. Oh, and alcoholics. Ostensibly a darkly comic portrait of the friendship between the tortured divorcé Miles (Paul Giamatti) and ladies’ man Jack (Thomas Haden Church), the film gathers some romantic momentum when sad-sack Miles meets a fellow wine buff Maya (Virginia Madsen). Maya’s treatise on her favourite grape varieties is a devastatingly sexy coded message to hapless Miles; the film’s ending gives a glimpse of hope to us all.
WENDY IDE

4 Say Anything . . .
Cameron Crowe, 1989

I defy anyone not to melt at the scene where John Cusack serenades his former sweetheart Ione Skye by playing Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes on his ghetto-blaster beneath her window. And while Cusack’s choice of portable stereo equipment certainly dates the movie, the story and the engaging performances are as fresh as ever. A love story with integrity, this movie sets a benchmark for high school romances that cinema all too rarely reaches.
WENDY IDE

3 Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee, 2005

The emblematic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you”, has become something of a punchline now, thanks to the endless Brokeback parodies that followed in the movie’s wake. Yet Lee’s film remains a sucker-punch testament to the power of love against the odds (in this case two tough hired hands, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who fall for each other). The gay-bashing finale, plus the recent loss of Ledger, is a downer, but you’ll certainly have plenty to talk about over starters.
KEVIN MAHER

2 Annie Hall
Woody Allen, 1977

The course of true love never did run smooth, but in Allen’s wry comedy of sexual manners it’s a minefield of neuroses. It’s perhaps counter-intuitive that a film about the breakdown of a mismatched relationship between the sarky pessimist Alvy Singer and ditsy Annie Hall should be such a terrific date movie. But there’s something so joyfully transcendent about sharing the pitch-perfect comedy of, for example, the lobster scene with a loved one that you forget that Alvy and Annie’s romance was doomed and concentrate on the quicksilver banter and mercurial wit.
"The very best of friends": what The Times said in 1977
WENDY IDE

1 The Philadelphia Story
George Cukor, 1940

A wedding movie before the concept became a cliché, and a rom-com before the genre was invented, The Philadelphia Story is the original and the definitive date flick. Genuine screen chemistry and rapid-fire badinage abound, as the boozy reporter James Stewart, the smoothie exhusband Cary Grant and the acridly witty bride-to-be Katharine Hepburn bicker, flirt and smooch around a Long Island mansion on the eve of the latter’s society wedding. Smart and romantic, without being saccharine, it is the giddy mood-setter par excellence for any date.
KEVIN MAHER

by The Times