The very excellently named How to Poo on a Date has just won the Diagram award for oddest titled book of the year. In case you’re struggling to figure out exactly what the book's about – it’s basically a guide to toilet stuff throughout a relationship. That pooing thing is hard though – living in cramped houses with dodgy plumbing like we're guessing most of you do, it’s not exactly going to be a long time before the great pooing myth (in that you don’t) is busted. Here are a few more social minefields you’ll find yourself navigating at the beginning of a relationship.
Speaking on the phone
Going for months before you hear what someone sounds like on the phone is part and parcel of being alive in this new fangled age of texting. The problem is though, your texts to each other are starting to rival War And Peace in length and if you’re honest it’d probably just be easier just to have a quick chat on the phone before bed rather than using your last bits of brainpower coming up with a witty reply to ‘How was ur day?’ but you’re sure as hell not making the first move.
Getting dressed in the morning
Getting undressed in bed is one thing. For starters, you’re probably in the dark, possibly drunk and doing a lot of erm, moving around, which means there’s no room for a full-on body scrutinise. Getting dressed in the morning? That’s the tricky part. Suddenly that 4ft gap between the bed and your little pile of clothes in the corner looks more treacherous to cross than a mile wide river of lava filled with piranhas.
The half hand hold
Holding hands seems a bit much so instead you normally settle for the awkward link – a half link/half grasp which is proving to be a bit of struggle thanks to the height differences and made all the worse by the fact you're starting to get back problems from holding your arm at an awkward level.
Getting over the no makeup thing
If you’re a makeup wearing kinda gal then being bare faced in front of others isn’t exactly top of your bucket list. To get round this you’ve employed the clever trick of removing all your makeup before bed except around the eyes – thus providing a half-hearted but entirely believable(ish) attempt at au natural.
Achieving the art of 'hanging out'
When does coming round your house for dinner stop being a date and start being just ‘spending time together’. Homecooked meals have been relegated to whatever you can find in the fridge and a pre-planned film already downloaded on your laptop has somehow turned into to TV with your housemates. Is this the end of romance as we know it? Very probably.
Trying not to fart
There’s two ways to do this one. Number one – holding it in. Problematic in the fact that it gets a bt painful after a while thanks to the weird air bubbles you can actually feel forming inside you. Number two – letting it out silently under the duvet. This is basically playing Russian roulette with smells – cue pinning the duvet to your sides in a ill advised attempt to prvent the stench from permeating into nostril territory.
Pretending to be a civilised member of society on a night out
A few a sprizters with the girls - that's normally how Friday nights go. As far as he knows. Doesn’t massively help when he meets your friends and they start going on about the time you duetted with the homeless man who plays the traffic cone like a trumpet.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.