After my nightly chore to Subway, I am always just as hungry before dinner as I am afterwards. Therefore, I almost always keep the television tuned in to the Travel Channel®, which is always playing something about food. Tonight is a Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern marathon. If you have never seen this show, 90% of its content is about eating animal genitalia. This, of course, is an exaggeration. However, even 1% of a show’s material focusing on eating animal genitalia is far too much.

Tonight, Andrew is eating bull penis. As I watch him both encounter and attack the penis, I think to myself that that is the exact same emotional roller coaster I go on before, during, and after a date. Before the date, I am characteristically nervous. I know that in only a few hours, I will have to eat and keep down a bull’s penis. I shower, and get as clean as I can for the upcoming bull penis. I get a haircut, so that I will be presentable for my date with the bull penis. I take my anti-anxiety medication so that I will not look nervous in front of the bull penis. I practice my conversation skills so that I can keep the bull penis entertained. Please keep in mind that I am in no way comparing women to a bull’s penis. I am only saying that the experience of dating is, to me, similar to eating a bull’s penis.

This far in my post, I am now realizing that I have said ‘bull penis’ too many times. From now on, I will refer to it as ‘BP’. However, I don’t want to disparage the oil company of the same name. Wait, why would I care about doing that? I’m sticking with ‘BP’. Once finally out on the date, I liken the experience to actually eating the BP. When you first bite into a BP, it is probably nerve-wrecking. You have bitten down, but have yet to experience whatever it might taste like. You know what it is, and that thought pervades your mind. Similarly, at the beginning of the date, you realize what you’ve gotten yourself into and you want out. You want to spit out the BP and run away. However, you can’t. You’re stuck with the BP and have to chew it thoroughly before digesting. The chewing is the worst part. In a similar sense, the conversation before the meal is the worst part. You just have to sit there, with no food, and prove to some person you’ve never met that you’re not dead inside.

Once the BP is in your stomach, you ponder the date later while at home. You try and pretend that it went well, but you know it’s about to reappear in a very horrible way. And that is how dating is similar to eating a bull’s penis.