I’ve often wondered how one should go about writing a personal ad for one of those dating sites. Obviously, you’d like compose an ad that reflects who you are and what kind of partner you’re looking for. But what do you focus on? Do you focus on physical appearances? Do you focus on intellectual similarities? How do you screen for the freaks and find the sincere, sophisticated, and attractive gentlemen/ladies you really want?

Well, Pathetic Personals takes the guesswork out of the whole complicated process and really nails down the easy steps you should follow. Here, I’ve taken their system, and slightly optimized it for brevity and your viewing pleasure.

(i) Use photos with your ex

(ii) choose from a list of clichés

(iii) Make it clear you do not intend to date

(iv) Mention if you like your soulmates thick

(v) Remove all punctuation

(vi) Edit for spelling

(vii) And lastly, be sure to ramble incoherently

So I gave it a try. Unfortunately, I didn’t stumble upon the above seven steps until after I had written my own. But gee, I don’t think I did too bad. What do you think?

I’ll be by my phone all night, ladies.

Once upon a time, there lived a young lad. These days, those who can remember this young lad’s tale dare not refer to him by name - for fear of reminding themselves of past horrors - so instead they simply refer to him as He-who-must-not-be-named. But hell, I can’t call him that. Rowling will totally bust down my door and kick my ass.

So instead, I’ll call him Phil.

Now I really want to stress that Phil - if that was his real name, which it totally wasn’t - bore no relation nor resemblence to the other Phil, the esteemed author of this post. Have I made myself clear? Excellent. Let us go on.

Young Phil was a classical violinist at the Conservatory of Music in Hull (Québec, Canada). Sure, that was the official name of the school, but it was often referred to by other, less desirable names: Hell, the Abyss, Infernus, Hades, the House of Horrors, Shithole of Beezelbub, you name it.

the abyss

During those tedious years, he was tormented by the horrors of Conservatory: demanding professors, private lessons, solfège classes, harmony exams, orchestral recitals, tours, concerts, thumbscrews, racks, violin bows up his ass, and other travesties too painful to mention.

Phil began his studies at the tender age of 5 and would remain as a miserable student until he was about 17. During those tedious years, he was tormented by the horrors of Conservatory: demanding professors, private lessons, solfège classes, harmony exams, orchestral recitals, tours, concerts, thumbscrews, racks, violin bows up his ass, and other travesties too painful to mention.

In exchange for whatever tortured soul he possessed, the Conservatory milked him for all his musical worth. Yeah. They milked him good.

Today, I’m offering my readers a rare glimpse into Phil’s former life. Not this Phil. The other Phil. Oh hell.

In the following, you’ll hear the senior orchestra of the Conservatory playing a Concerto written by one of its own members, Patrick Roux.

Can you hear Phil? Probably not. He was a second violinist and stuck at the back somewhere, bound to a chair and screaming.

But you see, in an orchestra that large, nobody - and I mean nobody - can hear you scream.

Please do send Phil your condolences and your comments

Men of my generation have no idea how to treat women.

See, I’m a hopeless romantic. I believe in the policies of etiquette. I believe in opening doors and candlelit dinners. I believe in the timeless gifts of roses, lilies, and other bouquets of colourful, nice-smelling flowers.

etiquette

“Whether a man should open doors and hold chairs for a women depends largely on whether the woman will appreciate these gestures. It’s fair to say that most younger women today are not inclined to sit in a car while a date walks around to open the door.”
Peggy Post

Call me old-fashioned, but I think that the man should do what he can to make the lady – whether she’s the woman of his dreams or simply a casual friend – feel like a true princess.

Am I the only one?

These days, I see young men treating their lady companions with the most obnoxious, rude, and inarticulate manners I have ever seen (at least until one passes the border into Gatineau, Québec.)

I’m not referring to certain out-of-date practices, like standing up at a table whenever the lady stands, but rather less chivalrous things that border on common-sense and simple courtesy. Things like holding a door at a restaurant (whether in front or behind) for the next person. Things like going to the door when arriving at someone’s place instead of honking at the curb or calling on a cell phone. It would shock you if I were to tell you about some of the names I’ve heard boys my age use to refer to their companions at a public establishment.

Slaying dragons and rescuing princesses are not on the agenda, though the most basic guidelines of how a true man should conduct himself in public is.

Wake up my fellow brothers. Start treating your lady friends (whether romantically pursued or otherwise) with more gentlemanly behaviour and you’ll do an enormous favour to both parties involved. We are not brutes. We are not Neanderthals. And we are not French.

(My apologies to my French readers. It has been a well documented fact that French rudeness should not be taken as anything other than a bad stereotype.)

However, there is one interesting dilemma we’re left with: in today’s day and age with today’s boys and girls, which rules of etiquette are still desireable and which rules are passé? In Peggy Post’s well known 700 page volume, Emily Post’s Etiquette, she addresses this concern when it comes to opening doors and holding chairs:

Peggy offers a simple, modern solution to this clash of cultures:

What’s my take on opening car doors and holding chairs? I don’t hold chairs unless I’m stuck in a bit of a formal setting and only when I’m sure the gesture won’t be misinterpreted. On the other hand, opening and closing the car door is something that hasn’t lost its touch, even among young men. I’ve found that it’s very much appreciated if you open and close the door for your friend when she just arrives. Once you’ve reached the destination however, most girls will not wait for you and will simply get out on their own, leaving you the trouble of wondering what the right thing to do is.

Opening the door for someone is not a difficult gesture and I’ve found that my old-fashioned courtesy is usually taken in stride with a rewarding smile and a giggle.

To: Readers of philsproof.com
From: Phil
Date: July 22, 2006 Noon-ish
Subject: My Christmas Present

Dear Readers,

I do understand how difficult it can be to select a Christmas present for a friend; a Christmas present that will be memorable, will be kept and cherished with each passing moment, and one that won’t be hastily rewrapped and re-gifted as soon as the opportune moment arises.

But you can all stop your endless pondering, because I know what I want.

Sadly, I’ve no idea where you can buy one, nor do I know how much it might run you. But I figure this will make up for that Nintendo I never got as a kid.

Oh, I would love it if you could wrap it in say, a saucy French maid outfit but really, I’m not that picky.

I know it’s still early, but these things take time. So just to warn you: Christmas Eve, I’ll be waiting at home, wearing nothing by a silky mauve Italian dress robe, holding a platter of milk and cookies, and hoping that the FedEx man shows up at my door with a box about 5′9 in height and curiously wobbling from side to side.

Sincerely Yours,
Phil

Do drop me a line if you’d like me to tell you who she is, or if you’d like me to confirm any of your guesses.

Yesterday night, I had coffee at a café with a math student I hadn’t seen since the school year. As the evening wound down, we had the following, rather ackward exchange:

‘Phil, can I ask you a question?’

Taken aback by the seriousness of her tone, I wondered whether it was going to be something embarrassing like, ‘When was the last time you saw another man naked?’ It wasn’t.

snapshot

You see, Snapshot is a bit of a celebrity among math students at Carleton University - we call him that because he likes to stand up in class with his little pocket camera and take pictures of the board, much to the annoyance of his fellow classmates.

‘Have you ever noticed how weird math people are?’

I frowned and took a sip of my Latté. I never thought we were weird. Maybe a little bit eccentric but it came with the territory.

‘Erm. No, I can’t say I have. Why would you say that?’

‘Oh come off it,’ she said, exasperated, ‘think of our Game Theory class. Everyone in that class was either weird-acting, weird-looking, or worse, both. Remember Snapshot?’

We both laughed like idiots.

You see, Snapshot is a bit of a celebrity among math students at Carleton University - we call him that because he likes to stand up in class with his little pocket camera and take pictures of the board, much to the annoyance of his fellow classmates. If that wasn’t enough he wears the dirtiest, most raggedy t-shirts in public, prides himself for sporting a swanky fanny pack, lugs around an enormous gym bag, and absolutely loves to fill his pants with the strangest objects, including a digital camera, a pencil case, a calculator, a few dozen pens, and packets of candy.

If you had ever seen a dirty, fat, annoying Russian with enormous hips, boxlike and inflated from the sheer number of objects he delighted in stuffing into his own trousers, there’s a very good chance you knew Snapshot.

‘See, it’s not just him I’m talking about,’ she continued unphased, ‘there’s that 60 year old lady with the short gray hair and the thick English accent.’

‘Sleepy Jeff,’ I murmured, finding a contribution of my own, ‘who works at night and sleeps in class.’

‘Tim’, she added, ‘or was it Tom? The guy who’s always so hopped up on espressos, he can’t stop stuttering. And what is up with the man’s hair?’

‘It’s Tim.’ I answered, helpfully. ‘Those six Chinese students who huddle together because they can only speak Mandarin?’

‘Oh. I think they’re getting better at English now. Then there’s Anthony. Do you remember him?’

‘That’s the old grad student with the tics and the fake nails right?’

Our conversation was a verbal tennis match. She: firing examples of typical math oddity at me. Me: clumsily batting back one of my own.

‘Andrew, the Goth in the trench coat.’

‘Olga, the Russian. I heard she’s dating the Analysis prof.’

‘Ew. Tiny Adam, who wears the giant, DJ-style headphones in class.’

‘Lane, the totally beefy blonde who scares all her tutorial students.’

‘God, I hate her. Hiba, the Lebanese woman with the four kids.’

‘That guy with the blue hair who walks like his feet are four sizes too large.’

We stopped and sat there in silence, slightly out of breath. Fine, she had a point, I grudgingly admitted. Our math classes are always a potpourri of oddness.

‘And let’s not forget about you, Phil.’

‘Well, what about me?’

‘You’re the worst one of all.’

‘What the fuck!’

‘Phil, think about it,’ she began slowly, ‘you’re a 20 year old grad student who started studying at 18.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious’, I said quickly getting on the defensive.

‘People think you stumble into our math classes by accident, having taken a wrong turn from the gym.’

‘So I’m a bit more defined. So I have, uh, contours. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

‘You don’t sleep. You work 17 hours a day. You live on coffee. You live on math. You’d rather work on campus when everyone’s in bed than during the day.’

‘It’s more quiet that way,’ I explained helpfully, ‘I get the entire campus to myself.’

She ignored me. ‘And let’s not get into your tastes. What kind of 20 year old likes classical music and listens to the opera?’

I was beginning to crumble. ‘You’ll find that I’m simply a bit more refined than the average hoodlum.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Phil, if you were any more refined, you’d have a senior citizen’s discount at the local Shoppers. Now, I’m saying this as a friend: You’re one of the best examples of why math students are freaks of the academic world. You’re the cherry on top.’

‘Oh god. What should I do?’

‘Just don’t fight it. It’ll go down a helluva lot easier. Besides, I hear Snapshot needs a friend.’