Poll Results #11

Thanks as always to everyone for taking part in the polls here on The Dude Whisperer. Here’s what you had to say for Poll #11…

How soon did you know your current (or latest) dude was a Long Term Dude?

OMG! At first sight! - 5%
A few dates. – 41%
A few weeks. – 23%
A few months. – 17%
A really, really long time. – 11%

Dudes, how soon did you know your current (or latest) long term gal was a Long Term Gal?

OMG! At first sight! - 0%
A few dates. – 50%
A few weeks. – 33%
A few months. – 16%
A really, really long time. – 0%

In other words, within a few weeks this incredibly scientific data says 69% of women and 83% of dudes (83!) know whether or not their new squeeze is a keeper. That’s not a long time. You just know, right?

So, what to do with this information? Well, next time you’re bending your best friend’s ear about some dude you’ve been dating for three months and fighting with and he doesn’t call back all the time and you think he might be a keeper but sometimes you're not sure… Stop for second and remember that the vast majority of DW readers tell you that by three months you should know what’s up. And if you don't know, that should tell you something.

It’s like the DW has said a LOT already. The first couple months are when you’re supposed to be so saccharine and goofy and ridiculously in love that you gross out your friends and your siblings make fun of you. It’s when dudes actually find themselves thinking marriage and kids and houses makes perfect sense and everything in the world is easy and sweet and glorious and full of sunshine and rainbows. The bummers of reality are for later. Seriously, if you can’t get through dinner without bitching at each other in the first three months of a relationship, you think it’s gonna get easier in a year when you’re not trying out new wacky boob and wiener placement combinations every week, you share an apartment and have to negotiate everything from sheets to silverware, you acquire in-law-esque obligations with a dude’s family and friends, etc.? Yeah, right.

Look, can you learn work some things out as you go? Sure. Little practical things. But if there isn’t some general ease about a relationship pretty much right away, it’s not gonna come riding over the horizon on a unicorn.