{"id":1396193,"date":"2018-03-07T10:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1396193"},"modified":"2019-02-08T11:30:23","modified_gmt":"2019-02-08T16:30:23","slug":"everything-i-know-about-dating-i-learned-from-the-great-gatsby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/everything-i-know-about-dating-i-learned-from-the-great-gatsby\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything I Know About Dating, I Learned from The Great Gatsby<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I won’t pretend I used to know a single thing about the mystifying swampland that is dating. I’ve tried everything to be a better dater\u2014reading magazines, taking online quizzes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I even tried saying hi to someone once, and it went terribly. But it wasn’t until I read The Great Gatsby<\/i>, otherwise known as the be-all, end-all in romantic instruction manuals, that I learned how to do this thing called dating, and do it RIGHT. Here are just a few of the \u00a0nuggets of wisdom that I absorbed:<\/p>\n

1. \u00a0Be rich. Girls like that.<\/p>\n

2. Find the most unavailable woman in the greater New York area. She’s the one.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Disappear for five years.<\/p>\n

4. \u00a0You can either accept that she’s the one who got away, or you can dedicate your life to pursuing an ideal as nebulous and unattainable as the American Dream.<\/p>\n

5. \u00a0The most attractive quality in a man is “has a mysterious backstory.”<\/p>\n

6. \u00a0If you don’t come from old money, well, good luck with that.<\/p>\n

7. \u00a0Don’t ever invite her to anything. Throw parties and just hope she shows up.<\/p>\n

8. \u00a0Become friends with her husband.<\/p>\n

9. “Old sport” is a good, gender-neutral term of endearment.<\/p>\n

10. If at first you don’t succeed, become a bootlegger.<\/p>\n

11. \u00a0Girls like a guy who will take the blame for their vehicular manslaughter.<\/p>\n

12. \u00a0Cute date idea: go to an illegal speakeasy.<\/p>\n

13. Cute date idea: take her out for lunch and tell her she’s a bad driver.<\/p>\n

14. Cute date idea: confess to your illicit affair. Run over your husband’s mistress. Flee the scene.<\/p>\n

15. Just remember: your first love is rarely ever your last love, unless you’re a sexy war hero with something to prove.<\/p>\n

16. \u00a0Staring at your crush’s house across the bay for hours and hours is completely normal.<\/p>\n

17. So is collecting newspaper articles about her.<\/p>\n

18. \u00a0If your friend’s mistress tries to set you up with her sister, definitely leave the party with someone else’s husband instead.<\/p>\n

19. \u00a0Love triangles can only be resolved when half the people are dead.<\/p>\n

20. \u00a0If you are Old Money, this is good. If you are New Money, you could at least have the good sense to die of shame.<\/p>\n

21. \u00a0Tips for a successful first date: meet at a mutual friend’s house. Don’t tell your crush that you’re going to be there. Women love surprises. Jump out the window.<\/p>\n

22. \u00a0Money can’t buy happiness, unless it’s the 1920s and your lover-to-be is a southern belle who’s expected to marry rich.<\/p>\n

23. \u00a0Triple dates almost always end with someone getting punched in the face.<\/p>\n

24. \u00a0Some people have a sixth sense that tells them when their spouses are cheating on them. This is a scientific fact, brought to you by Tom Buchanan.<\/p>\n

25. \u00a0You can’t repeat the past, except of course<\/i> you can!<\/p>\n

26. It’s the 1920’s, so everyone is cheating on their spouse, apparently. That’s just something that’s happening.<\/p>\n

27. If your husband is a racist and also cheating on you, you should probably stop being married to him. But that’s just me.<\/p>\n

28. When you inevitably reunite with the woman you love, force your friend, the perennial third wheel, to go stand in the backyard so the two of you can catch up.<\/p>\n

29. If you ask her out and she says she’s marrying someone else, that’s a maybe.<\/p>\n

Still need help in the dating department? Try \u00a0Everything I Know About Dating, I Learned from the Wife of Bath’s Prologue<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I won’t pretend I used to know a single thing about the mystifying swampland that is dating. I’ve tried everything to be a better dater\u2014reading magazines, taking online quizzes\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I even tried saying hi to continue reading<\/span>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[7957,23087,438,628,2335,155,6305,7064,694],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396193"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1396193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1396193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1396193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1396193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1396193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}