Over Thanksgiving I spent some serious time in my parents’ attic going through boxes of things I’ve collected over the years. I was trying to get rid of stuff, but I ended up finding such gems that I had a difficult time doing so. Gems that weren’t even mine to begin with! Like Emily Post’s original tome on etiquette. Or this priceless book from Benjamin Darling: Tips for Teens. Parts of it are absurdly outdated, but I found this bit timeless, found under the “Petting Particulars” section:

“Your Own Feeling of Rightness and Wrongness”

“You can gauge where to stop by how you feel after various kinds of dates. If you feel embarrassed about what you did on last night’s date when you wake up in the morning, you probably overstepped your own sense of what is right. If you find it hard to look into each other’s eyes when you next meet, then apparently you both feel that what you have done was not quite as it should have been. But if you awaken after a date with a feeling of happiness and joy of living, if you find yourself eagerly looking forward to seeing your date again, if you like being together, working together, sharing all sorts of things with each other, then it probably means that your physical love-making is not out of hand.”

Thank you, Mr. Darling, for this old-school yet solid advice.

Comments

Highlights