Pocket guide to dating

These are just a few things I’ve learnt during my dating experiences.

• Most important of all: Be yourself. Don’t try to impress with stories that are untrue or exaggerated. It will not work
• If you can select the place to meet, pick a place that is rather quiet and comfy, so you can talk without being disturbed by loud noises or crowds.
• Wear something that will make you look good but also comfortable. Too tight clothes might make you look slimmer / better looking but might make you feel too self-conscious.
• Try to have a snack before a date so that you’re not starving and be prone to getting tipsy too quickly if alcohol is included. If you eat too much you will feel bloated and unsexy.
• If you don’t know where you will be going try to wear something casual that can be acceptable in most places. If you do know, where something appropriate.
  
• Try to look as confident as possible and most of the times smiling. Also try looking your date in the eyes (not staring for too long – that’s just creepy).
• Don’t ever talk about former relationships and how or if you’ve been hurt in the past. Ever… In the extreme case of being asked, try not to look too distressed and change the conversation topic politely by giving some but not too much information.
• Don’t get drunk (unless your date is getting drunk as well)… I will not even mention drugs.
• If possible touching your date (not inappropriately - at least at the beginning of the evening / night) is always good. For example if your date says something funny while laughing or when you let him / her first through a door.
• Finally try to enjoy and relax the whole procedure. Even if you do feel a bit nervous, you are not (in most cases) the only one feeling like that. You are doing this to have a good time. Most likely you’ll feel at ease after a brief period of time.

These guidelines are of course too generic and do not apply in all cases. Also, some rules are meant to be broken. Some dates seem doomed from the beginning and there is no need trying to save them. Everybody has some awful / funny stories to say when it comes to dating. I have a few to say as well.

I just hope my today’s date will not go as bad…

Get in touch with my geek side (part 2)…

Apart from reading comic books I’ve also spent lots of hours playing video games this weekend. I used to love playing PC games when I was younger. I could spent hours doing it and also lose sleep thinking about it. I never really liked first person shooters, simulations, racing or sports games. I’ve spent some time playing adventure games like ‘Monkey Island’ but I can’t say that I’m an expert of the genre.
What I’ve always had a soft spot for strategy games (Starcraft, SimCity, Civilisation, Heroes of Might and Magic, Red Alert etc), platform / action games (Pirates, Wing Commander, Doom) and most of all Role Playing Games.


I believe that one of the very first RPG games I’ve played was Dungeon Master. I really loved it and I do believe I’ve spent ages playing it. Thinking back, there are some fantasy RPG games that come into my mind first like: Eye of the Beholder, Anvil of Dawn, StoneKeep, Baldur’s Gate, the Elder Scrolls series, Lands of Lore (the first one), Gothic, Neverwinter Nights and Might & Magic (especially 6 and 7).



I’ve also enjoyed playing games not falling entirely in that category like Fallout (loved it), Diablo (loved it as well), Knights of the Old Republic, Vampire: the masquerade, Fable, Titan Quest or Sacred. I’m a bit old fashioned when it comes to rpg games but I don’t believe that games like ‘Zelda’ or ‘Final Fantasy’ or even ‘Diablo’ are entirely rpg games. They are very linear and too action oriented. Ok, you may select and develop a character but it’s not the same. Would you ever think that 'The Sims' is RPG?

I’ve also never liked online RPG games like ‘World of Warcraft’. I’ve tried it for a couple of months but it didn’t have the same effect and I didn’t get hooked. I found it a bit weird having to depend so much on other players to do stuff and I did run into some very annoying (probably younger) players. Also, there is a philosophy of using cheats, reaching your goal of increasing levels by any means necessary that I didn’t like. I can see though why it would be appealing to other people (but not me)

Unfortunately, lately (it’s been almost two years) I stopped playing PC games. Working in an IT company makes me stay in front of a PC screen for way too long and I now spend many hours outdoors. Also, my latest laptop that I purchased in a hurry, after my old one was stolen, doesn’t support new games because I got it quite cheap. That means that the latest game that I did enjoy was Oblivion in my old laptop.

This weekend however, I stayed and played a bit on my PSP I got for the many hours I spend travelling. I didn’t use it at home either. I played a silly manga look-alike RPG game called Popolocrois (that I finished this weekend). I must say that it was enjoyable, quite big and cute. I don’t think you can find proper RPG games in PSP and that was close enough.

That got me thinking that I might need to get a new desktop because I really want to check Fallout 3 and with Diablo 3 and Startcraft 2 (eventually) coming…

Many may disagree with what I’m saying and I’m probably forgetting lots of amazing games, but these are the games that come into my mind at the moment and the things I believe on that matter.

Get in touch with my geek side (part 1)…

It’s been ages since I’ve done it, but I spent a fairly lazy weekend (excluding Saturday night) doing stuff I’ve never done in ages. First of all I went through some older comic books I have. I’ve been reading comics (especially from Marvel) since I was a boy in primary school. I can still remember the excitement I got before every scheduled trip to a near city from where I used to live, that had a comic bookstore. I think that you can still ask a couple of my then classmates and they would remember how I used to go on and on about it…

I’ve always loved comic books that had more than one main characters in them so that I could check how they would interact and evolve. That is why I used to read the X-series of Marvel and JLA. Occasionally I would buy titles like Spiderman, Daredevil, Batman or Spawn but X-Men and everything related was my favorite. I used to think that comic books with always the same characters would eventually repeat themselves and be boring. I didn’t even buy Fantastic Four for the same reason. Don’t get me wrong but it’s a matter of taste…


I read somewhere (I think) about how the secret lives of superheroes appeal to young gay men that hide their sexuality like having a second life. I don’t know if it’s true but I really loved my comic books when my mother hated them. She didn’t like me spending so much time (and money) reading them and she always argue on how I should be reading ‘normal’ books that would actually teach me something (according to her). That is why I used to hide them from her but she always managed to find them and throw them away. I think that I lost some amazing copies that way that I’d pay a fortune now to buy again…

However, I do have comics to thank for so many things. Primarily, I do believe that without them I wouldn’t get so much into reading and learning English. Comics and Computer Games are the main reason that I had to study harder in learning English so that I would understand what was going on in the plot.

Now, I don’t get that excited (losing my sleep) when going to buy my new comic books as I used to (sad but true), but I really do love browsing through them before choosing what to buy. I also tend now to buy Graphic Novels or whole Albums that I didn’t used to before because I simply couldn’t afford them.