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Rejection. It happens to the best of us, from the greatest basketball player in the world, to your average cubicle-dwelling twenty-something. Whether you’re cut from your varsity basketball team (Michael Jordan) or told “it’s not going to work out between us,” rejection hurts a little bit. The key is how you respond.

Everyone’s been there in the dating world. There’s a guy or girl you’re into, and you ask them to hang out. Things are going well, and then you get the “I think you’re a great person, but I don’t think things are going to work out between us” text. Depending on who you are, and how far you are into the relationship or whatever you call it, you’ll probably feel a mixed range of emotions.

The worst thing you can do is call them and scream at them. The second worst thing you can do is send a response back saying “Whyyyy?” This person already made their decision, now live with it. There may have been something wrong with you, or maybe it was them, so do a bit of self-reflection. Did I project myself as being the best possible person? Could I have been a bit more careful with what I said during the first time I met her friends? Did I reveal all of my cards to quickly?

When responding, either respond with an “Ok” and “understand” or don’t respond at all. A simple text that will go a long way. Who knows? Maybe this person will change his or her mind.

Dating is like playing a sport, or a musical instrument, in that it involves constant self-improvement, and learning how to deal with different situations. Rejection may hurt, but it’s not the end of the world. How you respond to it, and how you use the rejection to improve on your next relationship goes a long way to how successful you will ultimately be with your love life.

Did anyone see the New York Times article on the end of courtship? It was thought-provoking, with way too many shares between females showing up on my Facebook page.

With the high amount of “Girls” references, and the myriad of examples on guys missing dates, or bouncers hooking up with girls over whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese, the article seemed slanted against males. Girls were quoted as saying “guys don’t want to date, courtship is dead,” etc.

While “courtship” in its true 1950’s-esque definition means it is 100% on the guy to call the girl up, take her out, buy her flowers, and almost control the relationship, courtship in the millennial sense is entirely different. As I alluded to in my previous article about casual sex, we live in a time of convenience, and a time where 20 and 30-something females are on basically the same footing as males in terms of getting careers on track. It is not the era of “at 22 women will be bound to the house, studying up on Betty Crocker Recipes, and preparing themselves to be baby makers”. For the record, I don’t think my mother ever made a Betty Crocker recipe.

It’s not the end of courtship, it’s a change in courtship. I’m one who would rather call a girl to ask her out than text her. However, the problem lies when she doesn’t CALL back, but rather texts… saying that texting is easier for her. So, she really has no right to complain after setting that precedent early on in the dating cycle.

In terms of the hookup world, hookup young adults have a tendency to get married at a much older age than their other U.S. young adult counterparts. The marriage age has also increased from 21 and 23 during the 1970’s for hookup brides and grooms, to 27 and 29 in 2010. hookup young adults also have a tendency to be more career-focused than their other American young adult brethren, and millennial young adults in general have a tendency to be more transient than in generations past.

Given those facts and conclusions stated above, it is only natural that dating has undergone a change too. Courtship is still alive, but if you think you’re going to get a serious relationship out of a hook-up complete with whiskey and boxed macaroni and cheese, well, you’ve got a wide other set of problems.

If you are old enough to make a dating profile, you are probably also old enough to have already mastered spellcheck.

If you are old enough to make a dating profile, you hopefully are of the understanding that the use of OMG, LOL, LMAO, WTF, and other three and four-letter abbreviations make you look utterly ridiculous when used in your dating profile.

Yes, pictures matter. I’m all for witty profiles, and impeccable diction, but I’m not going to go out with you if you look like Joan Rivers.

On the other hand, even if you look like Sloan from the HBO show Entourage, but call yourself a “wrighter who wants to see if your compatible,” it brings up some cause for concern in my mind. For one, you have a lack of understanding of homophones… and you call yourself a writer. How is that going to manifest itself if we have some sort of “kemistree”? Are we going to have coherent text message conversations, or am I going to be inundated with “lol” responses when we fight via text over our Friday dinner spot?

Yes, it’s a dating profile, not a term paper. Still, your public dating profile is also a reflection of you. Make use of the auto correct feature on your phone, and the spellcheck feature on your “About Me” word document. You might be surprised at how many more people will end up messaging you.

Because of my newfound fame writing dating columns for 100hookup during these past 3 months, every so often I’ll get email inquiries from men and women alike, looking to solve their dating dilemmas. This one comes from Mack B. of Austin, Texas.

(NOTE: THIS POST IS HEAVY ON AMBIGUOUS SPORTS METAPHORS)

Dear Dating Prognosticater,

I have a problem. I’ve been in the Austin-Round Rock metropolitan area since 1998, and have enjoyed my time here, both professionally and personally. I have a couple of problems though- I feel like I’ve dated just about every Jew in the area.

I had a four year relationship with a religious girl, before she moved to Cleveland, and was in a really high-profile relationship with a girl who brought me a lot of fame seven years ago, and just moved back to be a model at a steakhouse downtown, and I’ve dated a bunch of girls in between.

I feel like I’m damaged goods, and destined for a life of singledom. Especially since there was this one girl who really liked me, but I didn’t like her back, so she moved to Waco, and now is a famous personality in Washington D.C. I cry inside every day about that.

What should I do?

Mack B.

Mack B.,

Have no fear. I have one solution for you: Look elsewhere. Have you been doing the same activities in Austin for the last fifteen years? Have you seen your friend group change? Have you dated the same types of girls (I guess not, since you dated a religious girl and a steakhouse model)? Answer that first.

Find a new hobby. Do you go to happy hour every single Monday-Friday? It might be time to take one of those drinking days off, and go to yoga. Maybe a pottery class is in your future? Join a co-ed book club? You still want to drink heavily on one day? Well, there’s always kickball.

Having a routine is great. The great thing about dating, however, is it relies on spontaneity- you don’t find your date through search engine optimization, but through chance encounters in person and online. You’ve been dating the same girl over and over again? Might be time to look at yourself and change some of your personal characteristics. That way you won’t miss out on the girl who might be “The One”.

“Having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I’ve learned in my life. I’ve (also) found out that having one woman a thousand different times is more satisfying.” – Wilt Chamberlain

For those of you who are not sports fans, Wilt Chamberlain was a Hall of Fame basketball player famous for scoring 100 points in a game on March 2, 1962. He was also famous for his claim that he had sex with over 20,000 women over the course of his adult life.

While none of you are seven foot Hall of Fame centers who star in movies as Conan the Barbarian, have a giant penthouse in Honolulu, or will sleep with what amounted to 1.37 women per day, many of you have engaged in trysts similar to Chamberlain… usually called “casual sex” or “hooking up” or other variations on “sex without emotional attachment”.

Casual sex could come in many forms- from one night stands, to that two date lawyer who became the 2 A.M. make-out, to that friend who goes from your bi-weekly coffee date to a “hey, I’ve got some wine and sushi, wanna come over” text at 7 P.M. on a Wednesday night. It is a millennial dream in some respects: a simple text, a night of intimacy, friendship intact, with no title whatsoever. Convenience.

For some in our generation who are excellent multi-taskers, casual sex can translate into dalliances with multiple men/women, so long as they share the same goals as you. As the marriage age gets older, and society becomes more free in terms of dating and sexual constraints, more and more people, especially young adults, see this option as a feasible alternative until they do decide to marry.

With this in mind, does casual sex tend to change the way you date? Do you learn more about someone through casual sex, than you would by just going on a series of dates? As a 20 or 30- something would you prefer to find the person you want to spend your life with now, or would you rather swear by the adage of “taking multiple cars on a test drive, before buying one?”

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, especially those who enjoy dating. At the beginning of each year, those single hopeless romantics create lists of 40-400 bullet points of what they are looking from in that dream hookup guy or girl, from the color of their eyes, to how they want to meet them, to their favorite sports teams. On that note, if any of you message me, and happen to be Washington Redskins fans, do not expect a response back, even if you do look like Natalie Portman.

With that in mind, here is Adam’s list of the 5 or so women I resolve to date in 2013.

1. Dianna Agron- I don’t watch Glee, but apparently she is in this show, according to my baby brother. I am not a vegetarian either, which Agron is, however I can look past that and see that she is a dancer, which will make our first date a two-stepping date, because honestly, two-stepping is like salsa for drunk people.
2. Amanda Bynes- Reports say she is “reevaluating” how to spend her social time. I am too, as I am considering pulling the plug on watching Dallas sports due to the pain it causes me. So Amanda, for our first date, let’s get a Venti Americano from Starbucks and watch She’s the Man.
3. Emmy Rossum- I am a sucker for girls with brown hair and brown eyes (wait, you mean every hookup girl?), and Rossum has it, as well as a cameo in my favorite Dragonball Z movie. She also happens to be a distant cousin of Vera Wang, and a singer of Christmas songs, so Emmy, what do you say we browse Bloomingdale’s to the tune of the new Cee Lo Green Christmas Album?
4. Melanie Laurent- My mother says I could use some world culture experience, so what better way to do that than by dating a French girl, who was in Inglorious Bastards. With that in mind, our first date would be at the gun range, firing .38 specials at paper targets with the pictures of America’s Ten Most Wanted Criminals, with the second half being at a low-key coffee shop.
5. Jamie-Lynn Siegler aka Meadow Soprano- Cause I’d be a total step up from Turtle (Entourage character).

Happy New Year everyone.

It’s 9:30 AM New Year’s Day. You started drinking champagne and vodka martinis around six the night before, proceeded to shimmy your way into random New Year’s Eve parties, put your number in several people’s phones, and woke up next to some guy/girl named Jack/Jill (names adjusted based on your preference).

You both wake up, and in between shouting expletives due to your massive hangover, and your mother calling you asking you if you’ll be at the family brunch, one of you inevitably rolls over and says, “wild night, huh?”

As you both sit there in the nude, you begin piecing your night, and find out not only did you bond over the top-shelf open bar and the chocolate fondue fountain, but also a drunkenly shared appreciation of Downtown Abbey and celebrity gossip. While in the hotel, you notice next to the obligatory King James Bible is a People magazine from a month ago. You start reading it, recounting the best celebrity romances from 2012.

An hour passes. You are both still naked. You’ve hung up on your mother twice. Your head is still throbbing, but this random who you met in a state of alcoholic bliss appeals to your senses. You like being naked, with a mildly attractive-looking guy/girl and ESPN’s Rose Bowl preview in the background. You realize you have to go to work tomorrow. Your mother is calling again.

With the clock striking 1 P.M., you come to the understanding that there’s only a couple of hours remaining on your weeklong work hiatus, and while this guy/girl is charming, you did make reservations for the mimosa and chicken and waffle brunch at the American bistro downtown. You want to burn some more calories before this unlimited brunch, so you do things not appropriate to describe in a public blog, exchange numbers, and go on your merry way.

It’s January 3^rd. You are sitting at work, with your email, Facebook, work website, and 100hookup tabs all open. Then you get the text…

“What are you doing tonight?”

You pray it was Mr./Miss Random, and you open up to respond, but you look at the name of the sender and it happens to be… your mother.

Oops.

So you’ve met this girl or guy. You like him or her, but you don’t know if they like you. You know where they work, live, play, and hope for a Hollywoodesque chance meeting at the local coffee shop where you can compare your latte orders and hopefully pick up a number. You want them to like you, but you also don’t want a restraining order against you a month after you meet them.

Given this situation, how do you properly “stalk” someone in a way that enables you to form some kind of relationship?

First, be nice. It’s a simple quality that goes a long way. It’s a “hi, how are you doing?” when you see them again. If you’re a guy, it’s even opening the door to a building if you walk in at the same time. However, being nice just doesn’t include the person you are after, it’s respecting the people around them when in a group setting. Show respect to their friends, and even random strangers who happen to be in the conversation. That way, the next time you run into your crush in a group setting, her friends will remember that initial niceness you showed them, and you’ll rank a little higher in their book.

After the initial niceness, it’s having the ability to make conversation. As outgoing and gregarious as I am, I have a slight tendency to act extraordinarily awkward around girls I like, rendering my conversational skills to zero. Once again a simple ,”Oh, I’m excited for this event “, or “hey, how was work today?” or “I really thought Shaniqua was going to get the rose on the season finale of the Bachelor” conveys a lot without making the person feel uncomfortable.

People go on dates with those they feel comfortable around and find intriguing. Yes, persistence is a nice trait to have, and telling your crush’s friends you like him/her may make them smile for a bit, but actions speak louder than words. I could be the greatest romantic in the world, but if I’m not a nice person, who’s going to actually want to date me, or even better, hope for a chance meeting in the local coffee shop?

Every Christmas, hookup young adults are faced with the same routine: some sort of Matzo Ball Christmas Eve, watching the Macy’s Christmas Day Parade (usually hungover), volunteering or watching the NBA, then going to eat Chinese food and watching a movie.

With that in mind, the question I have is this: Why can’t Chinese food and a movie be a possible first date? I know in my previous post, I stated an ideal first date would be coffee, but the Christmas date presents an interesting option.

In my opinion, the Chinese food “dinner” date is different than a regular “dinner date,”  as Chinese restaurants are usually the only ones open on Christmas Day. It is rather low pressure, since you were already going to go to a Chinese food restaurant anyway. In addition, a successful Chinese food date, with enough time, could lead to the New Year’s Date that you have been seeking, whether a simple pre-New Year’s drink, or that person you are desperately looking to have a sloppy make-out session with at midnight. Not only that, but chances are high your friends will probably be at the same Chinese food location that night, so what better way for this “prospect” to meet them and attempt to make a good first impression on them, as well as you?

Now, let’s take the opposite angle: What if your date doesn’t work out? What if you have no connection whatsoever in between bites of endamame and sushi, and now dread going to the movie?

Well, think of it this way: If you’re going to see Lincoln, you can sit watching an awesome three hour movie in silence, while feeling good that you ate moderately healthy at a reasonable price, and are now that much closer to finding the person who you CAN stand a whole Chinese food and movie date with.

I have been fortunate in both Dallas and Austin to be friends with two long-term couples. Both have been together a long time (3+ years) with the Austin couple set to have their first child in March. They are two seemingly low-maintenance couples who find constant joy in being around each other no matter the circumstance. Below is a list of observations that I’ve seen from both couples, things that can be easily translatable to your own love life.

1. Dallas couple: After every time they hung out in the getting-to-know-you stage of their relationship, the male always texted “I had a great time! Can’t wait to see you soon!” It was something simple, yet something that resonated with his girlfriend even to this day. This might give away a dating secret of mine, but its something that I’ve copied to an extent, as it’s a simple, yet far-reaching gesture.
2. Austin couple- I happen to be in a leadership group with them, and what I notice is touch. Not PDA, not ridiculous hand-holding, but a simple touch on the back when getting up, or a tap on the leg when in a conversation. It’s not overt, but a mechanism that still indicates affection without being too teenage-like.
3. Dallas/Austin couple- Both couples are able to tease each other, even in the public sphere. Once again, there’s a huge a difference between making fun of someone maliciously and teasing, but the two couples understand and are ok with their faults enough to make light of them in front of others.
4. Dallas/Austin couple- While both couples absolutely adore each other, they also give each other space. The girl in Dallas is one of my best friends, but there’s just something about the idea of “guy time”, as she encourages her boyfriend to go watch the game with his guy friends, talking about guy things, as she goes shopping and watches reality TV with her friends. Yes, my Dallas buddy incessantly texts her while he is watching the game, but there’s still that idea of “doing your own thing”, allowing both people in the relationship to have some sort of independence.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will probably have the same productive relationship that these two couples have enjoyed.