Dating Advice to My 14 Year Old Self

If I could go back in time and give advice to the 14 year old Vache Folle about females, here’s what I would tell him/me.

Listen to your future self. I know you know everything, but I’m you and know everything you know now plus 35 years worth of stuff. Pay heed to these warnings and suggestions.

Don’t waste any time chasing tail. Tail will chase you. Trust me. It’s chasing you right now and you don’t even know it.

Don’t bother with a steady girlfriend until you are much older. It will be way better to play the field and keep your options open. That way, you won’t let the existence of girlfriends influence your other decisions in life. Any steady girlfriends you have for the next few years are going to dump you eventually right when you are most attached and vulnerable and when you least expect it, so do yourself a favor and date around and have fun. It’s way more fun to play the field, and you shouldn’t have to wait seven years to figure that out like I did.

Don’t waste any time on girls who aren’t interested in you or who already have boyfriends. Sure, be “friends” with them, but don’t think that your girl friends will ever become your girlfriends. The best you can hope for is to negotiate some kind of “friend with benefits” deal, and I’ll tell you in private which girls are most likely to go along with such an idea. Besides, there are plenty of attractive and amiable girls who are interested in you, and all you have to do is get your head out of your ass and take notice.

Don’t be afraid to ask girls out on dates. The worst thing that can happen is that they turn you down. It’s no big deal, and you shouldn’t let fear of rejection keep you dateless. Saturday night all night Risk playing parties with your other dateless friends will get old very quickly. I’m not saying that you never want to play Risk with the guys, but it will be nice to have other options.

Until you can drive, don’t bother with dating per se (unless your date can drive). Just hang out in co-educational settings and have fun. Church activities are great for meeting and hanging out with girls. Dating is actually pretty awkward and is not nearly as much fun as you might think, especially if there is not much chance of a happy ending. If you ask some of the girls to accompany you on your bike rides or hikes, they will be happy to go.

Know your Bible. There are plausible arguments to be made that certain activities are not actually “sex” and that they do not fall under Biblical prohibitions on fornication and what not. Girls will readily accept your exposition if it is backed up with some verses that you have memorized.

Take some dancing lessons. Your “freestyle” dancing moves are ridiculous, and lots of opportunities for interaction involve dancing. If you can dance, your comfort level will go way up, and you won’t look like such an idiot.

Take guitar lessons. Chicks dig guitar players.

Don’t get too attached to any of the local girls. You are going to blow this town as soon as you can after high school, and you are never going to look back.

You are going to be way more attractive to girls when you get to college than you ever will be in high school. The guys who are popular now for being football players are going to marry their steady girlfriends and work in carpet factories. Do not envy them. These are the best years of their lives. Yours are yet to come. Besides, if a girl is impressed by a guy’s being a football player, she’s not your type. You don’t want to waste any time with girls that you aren’t actually going to like as human beings.

When Bonny what’s her name tries to help you remove your rappelling harness at Cloudland Canyon, let her.

Almost nothing that happens in the next four years is going to matter as long as you don’t get yourself killed or maimed or convicted of a felony. Once you turn 18 and head off to college, everything is a do over.