RELATIONSHIPS Do Nice Guys Sleep Alone?

Here is how Bruce Feirstein realized that nice guys sleep alone: he was dating a woman who said to him: “I love you. I need you, I want to be with you, but I have dates for the next two weeks.”

Enlightenment was followed in short order by a book contract. Taking Nora Ephron’s Heartburn tack, Feirstein didn’t get mad, he got even-at the typewriter-and produced Nice Guys Sleep Alone: Dating in the Difficult Eighties (Dell paperback, $4.95). The result, a riotously funny combat manual for those on the battlefronts of the DMZ (dating madness zone), comes out this month, and promises to follow in the best-selling tradition of Feirstein’s first book, Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.

Feirstein, who is thirty-three and lives in Hollywood, has been dating for more than fifteen years now. which he thinks is entirely too long. “I wish it would ail be over by six o’clock this afternoon,” he says ruefully.

The problem, Feirstein explains in his book, is this: “Dating was never supposed to go on for Fifteen years. It used to be that you started dating in high school, refined your technique in college, then grew up and got married so you could have sex. But the sexual revolution changed all this: You no longer had to get married to have sex…. You no longer had to grow up and get married ….In fact, you no longer had to grow up at all. So dating-which was once the sport of teenagers-suddenly became something that could go on forever.”

Given that dating is a lengthy-and recurring-process. Feirstein thinks we ought to get good at it. Along these lines, he offers the North American Field Spotter’s Guide to Dating Classifications. Among his types to avoid are those who engage in Auction Dating, The Walking Wounded (Stage One), The Walking Wounded (Stage Two), Power Dating, and Sudden-Death Dating.

Auction Dating, also known as Southeby dating, is practiced by people who are always holding out for a better offer. These appraising types are most likely to be met at a party someone else has taken them to.

The Walking Wounded (Stage One) always have “new contacts” that cause them to blink back tears continuously at the memory of the last bad relationship or marriage, which they can neither learn from nor get over. At dinner, vodka serves as their appetizer, entree, and dessert. The odds of starting a relationship with one of The Walking Wounded (Stage One) are great-as long as you’re totally wrong for them. Give them a few years and a certain Siberian bitterness will set in, turning them into The Walking Wounded (Stage Two).

Power Dating is also known as resume romance. As long as you can keep introducing the Power Dater to useful business or social contacts, all is well, but when your stock drops, you’re dropped.

Finally, there is Sudden-Death Dating, favored by those who have spent their twenties in a series of “holding-pattern” relationships and are ready to get married, tomorrow, if possible. According to Feirstein, men who have played the field too long begin to think things like “Every night I go to bed with a strange woman is another morning I won’t wake up to see my grandchildren.” Women in the throes of Sudden-Death syndrome are no longer worried about taking his last name after marriage; at this point, they’re willing to take his first name, too.

Once you’ve classified your date, it’s time to consider a pre-relationship agreement. Feirstein suggests that the following areas be addressed:

Full Disclosure: “At the commencement of said relationship (colloquially referred to as the ’first date’ or ’fix-up’), each party agrees to fully disclose any current marriages, dependent children, bizarre religious beliefs, phobias, fears, social diseases, strange political affiliations, or currently reference to an old boyfriend: ’We date.’ (I sleep with Murray occasionally.) ’We have an understanding.’ (I want to sleep with Murray all the time, but he wants to fool around.) ’We’re about to break up.’ (Murray and I still sleep together, and I’m out testing the waters-but I’ll probably sleep with you just to make Murray jealous.) ’I’m best friends with my ex.’ (Murray and I still sleep together when I’m horny.)”

Feirstein provides other, assorted useful information, too: it’s a good idea to pay close attention to how your date treats waiters; in six months, that’s exactly the way they’re going to be treating you. A previous marriage is a good sign because “after all those years on the open range, anybody who hasn’t been married or hasn’t had at least one long-term serious relationship by the time they’re thirty-six isn’t going to adjust well to domestic captivity.” The sign of true romantic obsession is “reading their horoscopes in Town & Country, praying it’ll say ’FOOL! GO BACK! SANDY LOVES YOU!’”

Feirstein’s observations about sex are in tune with the retro-conservative Eighties: he thinks that casual sex only makes for casual enemies. Accordingly, he takes a dim view of sex on the first date: “Sleeping with somebody changes everything. One person inevitably wakes up the next morning wondering whether it’s ’going to be more than just one night’ while the other is looking for an ejection button on the side of the bed and can’t understand ’how did I go to bed with a date and wake up with a relationship?’”

Although all in all, Nice Guys Sleep Alone does a good job of exploring the dating terrain, there are a couple of topics that Feir-stein failed to cover. The radically different ways in which men and women approach preparing for a big date, for instance.

As cartoonist Mimi Pond points out in the Village Voice, a typical female date-preparation routine includes calling her best friend; scoring a copy of Thin Thighs in 30 Days; going on a juice last; quitting smoking; buying albums; getting cable installed; having her teeth cleaned; whipping through Time and Newsweek; refinishing her coffee table; buying new underwear, perfume, and candles; cleaning her closet; having a sauna, massage, bikini wax, cellulite mud wrap, deep pore cleansing, manicure, pedicure, haircut, and lash tint; charging major bucks for hosiery (assorted textures, patterns, and sheens); getting a dimmer switch installed; having a leaky faucet repaired; sleeping eight hours to awaken fully refreshed; calling a liquor store for delivery of Scotch, tequila. Harvey’s Bristol Cream, dry white wine, and a hearty, robust Burgundy; laying in supplies of French Roast, imported jam, croissants, and sweet butter; running out for fresh-cut flowers; dumping kitty litter; dusting and doing the dishes; provocatively arranging the coffee table with foreign and esoteric magazines; setting out clothes and three possible stocking choices; bathing; fixing hair; putting on makeup; putting on strapless sarong (looks whorish); changing three more times; working up a sweat; showering to rinse off; settling on basic black; dressing; refixing hair; reapplying makeup; experiencing shoe panic and changing black sandals to red pumps; checking makeup; blotting lipstick; calling best friend; turning on stereo; applying perfume; fidgeting; and calling best friend. A typical male date-preparation routine, on the other hand, consists of changing his shoes and considering shaving.

Then there is the telephone and its relationship to dating. When you’re a player in the dating game, the phone holds thrills and chills undreamed of by noncombatants, The answering machine is a mixed blessing. Owning one frees you from self-imposed house arrest (although not from making a spectacle of yourself by calling in to check your messages every fifteen minutes). But making a call and getting an answering machine instead of a human after you’ve gutted up to ask someone out is hideously disconcerting. Depending on your character, you either hang up and despise your cowardice or you proceed to leave an incoherent message, the memory of which will cause you to experience the tortures of the damned. And forgetting to turn it on at a crucial juncture will drive you mad with thoughts of what you might have missed.

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that the difficulties of dating do not go on forever. Either you find someone to take you off the dating market, or you die.