Through a careful combination of shameless flirtation and saucy enigma, you’ve managed to snag a date with a studly god-prince of a classmate who appears to have left his heavenly palace just to sit behind you in Calculus-Based Physics. Your rendezvous is set for 6:30 tonight, but your preparations begin far earlier. With an occasion like this, you can’t be anything less than the perfect, beautiful princess, ready to be swept off her feet. But be careful! Look too interested and the thrill of the chase will be lost to him, and you can forget about him ever asking you for so much as a pencil ever again, let alone a date.

At exactly 6:27, you hear a noise outside. After a quick glance in the mirror to double-check your hair, you step outside. There sits your handsome prince, resplendent on his throne — the driver’s seat of his mom’s minivan. A tactful lady such as yourself should not comment on sticky mounds of years-old gum wrappers, nor should she deign to roll down the window to relieve her nostrils of eau de rancid juice box. It’s in your best interest to act like you’re Cinderella being whisked off to the royal ball via pumpkin carriage.

You and your lucky man are now to be cloistered away for at least an hour, most likely in a secluded, romantic booth at, you guessed it, your local Denny’s. While you’re pretending to lose yourself in thought about whether Italian or French dressing would better complement your salad, he’s most likely mentally adding figures and kicking himself under the table for not throwing in the towel and choosing the Burger King drive-through. You dwell for a moment on the moment you first saw him stroll into your physics class, sun refracting from his golden skin, surrounded by female admirers who’d surely give anything to be in your pair of glass slippers. Could this possibly be that same handsome prince?

After ten minutes of not-so-fluid conversation (topics may include: physics, the decrepit state of Garfield, and other people in the restaurant), your food is finally served. This, my friends, is your challenge: You arrived at your place of dining like a debutante princess, and you must eat and converse precisely as such. Do not, under any circumstances, make any sound indicative that there is a digestive process beginning in your mouth. Instead, delicately pick at your food, your ladylike smile not betraying your gnawing starvation. Getting a piece of spinach stuck in your teeth is simply a risk not to be taken; nor should you allow for the possibility of accidentally putting too much food in your mouth and stopping conversation as you awkwardly try to finish it. Besides, you don’t want to be the girl he remembers as “that one chick who ordered so much food that I didn’t have enough money to buy the movie tickets afterward.”

Because, of course, he’s paying. Right? The check comes, and both of you hesitate. Your eyes meet. “I think I can get this,” he says, careful not to sound confident enough for you to believe him. Now you’re no longer a princess. You’re a modern woman, and you shouldn’t settle for anything less than financial independence.

After covering half the bill, you also fork over enough for your movie ticket and half a bucket of popcorn. Depending on which theater you’re at, you may be making plans to reduce your car’s gas intake for the next month by waking up two hours earlier and biking to school. As the lights go down, your date stretches, yawns, and settles his arm around your shoulders. An hour and a half later, they come up again on you, the popcorn bucket you’ve ravenously emptied, and the guy sitting next to you, who’d been too busy checking out Natalie Portman to notice that his arm had gone completely numb. Both of you agree that the movie was good, but not that good. Back to the royal pumpkin minivan it is.

Don’t despair, ladies, you’re nearly at the end of this arduous trial of grace and etiquette. Just one test remains to be passed. As your ride slows to a stop outside your house, to which Mr. Date perfectly remembered the directions, you begin to gather your possessions. You open the door, place one foot delicately on the sidewalk, and realize you’ve forgotten your wallet. As you turn to retrieve it, your guy leans in for the kiss of the century. It’s only proper that you oblige.

After a quick wave goodbye, you hurry up the steps, just a little happy to be home. Handsome princes, you conclude, probably aren’t found in your average Physics class.

Click here to read “He Said: The Dating Dilemma”