It’s both awfully strange and predictably true that we all find out some truths about life too late to put them to use ourselves. I suppose that’s where the saying “youth is wasted on the young” comes from. Many of my own discoveries would really have served me much better as a teenager and young single twenty-something. For instance: I can’t tell you how many of my thirty-something friends have been trying for months to get pregnant. Months!? Who knew it was so difficult? How many nerve-wracking hours did I spend as a young man worried about accidentally getting a girlfriend pregnant, even with proper birth control methods? I certainly might have had a few more nights of restful sleep to my credit.
My latest discovery is even more of a forehead-slapper. But even though it’s too late for me, it might not be for you. So I want to make sure that everyone knows.
Wine knowledge makes you sexier.
It’s true. Statistically correlated and everything, by really smart people who know their deviations from their derivatives. A study conducted among more than 2300 single men and women in the United States demonstrated that sixty-four percent believe that a member of the opposite sex’s choice in beverage says a lot about their personality, and (here I’ll quote) “More than seven in 10 survey respondents (72 percent) agree that knowledge about wine makes a member of the opposite sex more attractive.”
And if you don’t believe me, just ask Dr. Ruth.
If only I knew this when I was twenty-five. I would have been spending a lot more time hanging out in my local wine store. OK, maybe not. But I certainly might have had a bit more self-confidence when it came to dating.
My wife won’t come clean about just how much my wine knowledge played into her decision to say yes when I popped the question, and I’ll get in a lot of trouble for musing wistfully about how much more successful my dating career might have been if I threw around a bit more of my wine knowledge.
But I can certainly do my best to help you single wine lovers out there get some action. All joking aside, here are my recommendations for using wine to improve your dating life.
1. Learn about wine and drink lots of it. That’s the easy part. And remember that it’s wine knowledge that makes you sexier, not just wine (though after they throw a few glasses down the hatch, most people will think you’re sexier).
2. Go to wine tasting events and pay attention to more than just the wine. There are scores if not hundreds of single men and women roving around at these large public tasting events. When you find yourself (or maneuver yourself) at the same table as someone cute, strike up some conversation. Ask what they think of the wines, whether they’ve had any that they like yet. Offer your recommendations. Don’t tell spit or swallow jokes.
3. If you know enough to appropriately match the wine to the food, bring a nice bottle on a second date. If you get the chance, ask beforehand whether your date prefers red or white.
4. On first dates don’t make assumptions about your date’s wine knowledge if you don’t know (and don’t waste a nice bottle on an evening that might end up being a downer).
5. Convince one of your friends to hold a singles wine tasting party. Go.
6. Take a wine class and be nice to the cute people in it. Don’t be a know-it-all.
7. Never, ever get sloppy drunk on wine with someone you haven’t had sex with yet, unless that is the goal.
And finally, if you get really desperate, there’s always online dating for wine lovers. Unfortunately the site’s profiles don’t force you to list the top bottles in your wine cellar.
Now go out there and be sexy!
