I Suck at First Dates
Papi, how do I become a better conversationalist?
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¡Hola Papi!
I’m a twenty-something straight guy (audible booing) who’s not very good at first dates (booing intensifies). Maybe it’s nerves, maybe it’s that I’m a deeply uninteresting person who lacks life-changing trips abroad or near-death experiences to talk about, but whatever it is, I just feel like I have all the personality of a dead fish the second I sit down across from a lovely lady at the restaurant we agreed to meet at.
To be honest with you, watching myself fail to enchant yet another woman on these dates makes me feel like a complete incel. It’s a little pathetic. I do think it comes down to my lack of charisma (I’m rizzless, as the kids would say) as I feel I’m decently attractive and I typically don’t struggle to find a date in the first place.
Papi, is there something I’m missing here? Some secret trick to leveling up my conversation game? Or do I need to accept that I’m as charming as an eel?
Signed,
Wet Paper Bag
Hey there, WPB!
I find eels to be incredibly charismatic. I remember early in the pandemic when that Japanese aquarium invited people to FaceTime with their eels because they were forgetting what human faces looked like. I checked in with them all the time, though there was often quite the queue. This is to say, there’s actually a chance you are less charming than an eel. Eels have no issue getting people interested in them.