Oh my god, so like, Becky totally hooked up with Chris who was all up on Cassandra last night but Becky doesn’t even know and she’s like my best friend and I feel really bad for not telling her and…
Yawn.
Look, ladies, no offense. It isn’t our fault we don’t want to hear your dramatic stories involving who may or may not have hooked up with what’s-his-face. We don’t need to hear about your party stories about last weekend, especially while we’re on a date. There’s a reason why guys generally don’t divulge party specifics with women (at least women they’re dating)…it’s messy. It’s messy, it’s gross, and while it may not always involve us, we’re sure you don’t want to hear about it. Similarly, we aren’t that interested in hearing about your best friend’s sexual exploits, you know?
If you’re on a date with a guy – or if you’re just hanging out for the night – here are some good conversation topics (based on major) that he might be interested in.
So you’re dating a Political Science major:
President Obama recently broke his silence on whether or not we should get rid of the penny, saying to John Green in a YouTube discussion recently, “Anytime we’re spending money on something people don’t actually use, that’s an example of things we should probably change”. Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have themselves gotten rid of the penny – and really, when was the last time you found yourself digging through your pockets to find a penny? Nowadays a large portion of people pay by cash and take change, or pay by plastic and save themselves the hassle of change. While this matter isn’t of huge national importance (actually, it could be – a penny costs more to make than it’s worth so cutting it out of the economy completely could actually save the country a sizeable chunk of change [ha.]), it’s light enough to spark some kind of intelligent conversation between the two of you.
So you’re dating a Visual Arts major:
Some people are starting to say that documentaries and photographs highlighting disaster-stricken areas (like those from Hurricane Sandy) are more exploitive and doing more harm than good. ARTNews did an entire piece on the subject of “ruin porn”, which is the documenting of images and videos of areas destroyed by natural disasters. Your man may not be a Photography major, but he may still be interested in hearing about the subject and debating what does and does not constitute as art.
So you’re dating a Theology major:
As you may know, Pope Benedict XVI recently announced his decision to step down from the papacy. It’s an unusual story because, generally, the Pope stays the Pope until death. An interesting conversation between you and your man might be about whether or not you or he believes Benedict XVI stepping down was the right thing to do. After all, the man is getting up there in age…can you really blame him from wanting to step out of the public eye?
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So you’re dating a History major:
A team of British scientists recently announced that the body found under a parking lot is in fact that of King Richard III. You and your historian could discuss the Wars of the Roses (which were a series of wars fought between rival houses near the end of the Middle Ages). Another discussion could also come up about the many wounds Richard III sustained right before or after his death, as his skeleton – namely his skull – was found with quite a few holes in it.
Or you could discuss how Richard III looks eerily similar to Lord Farquad from Shrek.
So you’re dating a Biology major:
Scientists have recently found that birds and humans use the same areas of their brains when singing and speaking, apparently, which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “birdbrain”. From ScienceNews, “Neurobiologist Erich Jarvis of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues discovered roughly 80 genes that turn on and off in similar ways in the brains of humans and songbirds such as zebra finches and parakeets. This gene activity, which occurs in brain regions involved in the ability to imitate sounds and to speak and sing, is not present in birds that can’t learn songs or mimic sounds”. Your man could explain his problems with the findings, or why he agrees with it entirely.
So you’re dating a Journalism major:
First off, good choice. NewsCastic recently put together a list of ten reasons why dating a journalist is a good decision to make, which can be seen here. Among those reasons? “Not only will we remember your birthday but we’ll also memorize your license plate number, your address, polling location and school board district”, “Our restaurant picks are based on health inspection reports”, and “Years of lede writing = perfect pick-up lines”. Nonetheless, the White House press corps has recently come under scrutiny for complaining that they weren’t allowed in on Obama’s weekend…which he spent playing golf with Tiger Woods. The Washington Post has a great story about the very non-story that this whole thing is, but you could ask your journalist-boyfriend’s opinion on the whole issue anyway.
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So you’re dating a Marketing major:
Alexis Madrigal from The Atlantic recently put up a post about Tweeting and happiness. Apparently – according to a very confusing mathematic equation that counts words and stuff – the happiest half of the country is the Western half (red being happy, blue being sad in the map below). The equation, which measures tweets and their many words, looks for keywords that might be either happy or sad. Among the happiest states? Hawaii and Maine (of all places). The saddest states according to measured tweets? Delaware and Louisiana. Your Marketing boyfriend could use these statistics to put together a sweet marketing deal aimed at raising the happiness of these sad states. And, as you may know, you buy things when you’re happy. Yay economical stuff!
I heard you were dating a Criminal Justice major:
Oscar Pistorious – a double amputee athlete – is accused of shooting and killing his girlfriend in their home in South Africa. He claims he heard noises in their bathroom and assumed it was a home intruder. But now new evidence is coming out showing that neighbors heard shouting and screaming the same night, and Pistorious’ story is starting to unravel. He says he fired into the bathroom because he felt vulnerable, explaining that his artificial legs were not attached to him at the time of the shooting. Officer Hilton Botha, however, says the shots were fired at a “top to bottom” trajectory, suggesting that Pistorious was in fact wearing his artificial legs – the very legs that earned him the name of “Blade Runner” during his athletic career. With evidence starting to pile up, I’m sure your Criminal Justice boyfriend has a few ideas on what may have actually happened that night.
Any way you go, you’re bound to get some kind of discussion from one of these topics. Not to mention the fact that all of these are so much more interesting than talking about Becky and Chris and Cassandra and the immense amount of drama that your story may or may not contain. This saves you the hassle of asking whether or not he was listening (he wasn’t, I promise [especially if he was playing Call of Duty while you were talking]), and it saves him the hassle of having to listen to all the dramatics.