Let's start from the very beginning

How I got started on a dating rampage...

Picture this: an attractive, intelligent, accomplished woman in her late twenties. Obviously a catch, she's newly married to an attractive, intelligent, successful man. The adorable couple just bought their first condo, they cook Hello Fresh meals together on weeknights, and spend Thursday evenings hosting a small group at their church.

Okay now stop picturing that, because that’s not where we're going with this blog. While I am all of those nice adjectives, I just bought my first single-serve crock pot, I sit in the Chick-Fil-A drive through some weeknights and most of my Thursday evenings are spent working out and watching #CardiB videos on YouTube. I am successfully single and pretty damn good at it, I might add. Okurrrt!

At the urging of my happily hitched friends, I decided to embark on the journey that is online dating after being very single for about a year and a half. I guess they were sick of me showing up solo dolo to weddings, wasting my coveted +1 on the Holy Spirit. So, being the selfless woman that I am, I created a profile on OkFish...or was it Plenty of Cupid? I uploaded some particularly flattering pictures of me cheesing it up, hammered out a cursory description of myself “Sassy, sweet, sarcastic, silly…” and joined the swarm of souls swiping for that special someone.

I was on this site for a little over a month. During that time I went on 12 dates in 4.5 weeks with 11 interesting male characters of varying levels of social awkwardness, attractiveness, and height. Despite what my clever holiday title implies, they weren't all totally cringe-worthy, but needless to say, it was an experience. After sharing some of my nonsense stories, several friends recommended I chronicle these laughable, and somewhat horrific, date stories in a blog.

In other words, to quote the great Kevin Hart, please feel free to laugh at my pain.

Because of the work online dating requires, I developed a few systems to ensure the utmost efficiency in both scrolling through profiles and filtering through the men I agreed to meet in person. I had a swiping system, which you’ll learn, and a 3-Step First-Date filter. See below:

Test 1 - The Check Test. As a dominant, type A woman who likes to be in control (yes, I am aware), I need a man to be an Alpha. I can’t handle no punks. The easiest way (in my opinion) to assess whether or not he can handle me trying to take charge is to see how he reacts to me attempting to pay for our date. Now, before you get all Kanye West with the #golddigger accusations, slow your roll and keep reading.

I don’t want a man spending more than $10 on me on a first date, so my preference is to do something chill. Let’s get coffee or #froyo. Grab one drink, maybe two if we’re really vibing. Definitely not dinner. I don’t want to spend more than one hour with someone I can’t stand. I've made that mistake. Never again will I sit across from some loser, tapping my toes under the table hoping he chokes-I mean, uhh hoping he eats quickly so I can leave. I want a first date to be cheap, chill and non-committal.

To be clear-I make my own money; I don't want or need his. But I do need to be challenged and I need a take-charge type man to do it. If a dude can’t be bothered to step up and say, “I’d like to get this one” for a measly $3.88 taco or a $2.67 smoothie…he ain’t the one.

Test 2 - The 2 Hour Test  If he passes Test 1, we move on to Test 2. This one is simple enough: after assessing whether or not he can handle me trying to take charge, I need to decide if I can handle everything I don’t like about him. Following a cumulative balance of pros/cons run through a statistical algorithm built by NASA mathematicians and Beyonce’s accountant, I ask myself “Could I spend another 2 hours with him?” If yes, and the gentleman asks me out again, we proceed with a second date.

Test 3 - The Nipple Test. Dating as friends is fine, but that’s not really what this month-long experiment was about. This was dating with romantic interest. So, let’s make sure there’s some romantic interest, right? It can take a while to be physically attracted to someone, but I believe there is a reliable test in which you can determine if there’s even a chance that one day you’d be sexually aroused by the man sitting across from you in a dimly lit coffee shop. I call it The Nipple Test: simply imagine your nipple in his mouth. Yup, if you’ve gone on two dates, you’ve gathered at least enough preliminary data to have some kind of gut reaction to the thought.

Some women think they need to kiss a man to see if they are into him. I feel like that’s faulty because gross-that means you have to kiss someone you may not be attracted to and it may skew the data if he’s a really good kisser. Not a reliable method.

The reason it’s your nipple and not say, your clitoris, is because we don’t want to introduce a pleasure bias. But your nipple? Just your nipple? It works because 1-It’s awkward so you’re immediately thrown off cognitively 2-The act implies that you’re at least half-naked, so immediately you’re thinking vulnerable thoughts and 3-It’s sexual, but not distractingly pleasurable. For me at least, it’s proven a true measure of initial possible attraction. Do I want to gag at the thought? Okay, move along. Am I intrigued and/or unbothered? Well then, 3rd date is. Am I now so turned on by the thought of his tongue meeting my bare skin that I’ve stopped breathing? 3rd date it is, but let me make sure I pray first.

Now that we’ve established some background, here goes! I’ll post three dates per week so you can really live it as I have lived. If you'd like to partake in my journey, subscribe below! Prepare yourself, for on these 12 Dates of Cringe-mas, my swipe rights gave to me: El Primero, Nondescript, Gootense, Sebastian, Little Drummer Boy, Pufferfish, Gootense the Sequel, Cocky Ginger, The Hottie Professor, Abe Lincoln, Hollywood and Jolly Green.

Click for Date 1 - El Primero